Developed by Sand Sailor Studios

Published by Square Enix

Available on PC, PS4, and Xbox One

Rated T for Teen

Remember when platformers were about comical plumbers or dudes with detached hands leaping about through colorful environments and casually stomping on caricature wildlife? When I was a kid, the platformer was the go-to style of video game. It was a bright and creative time of wonder that I am in no way misremembering through the rose tinted lense of nostalgia. Even through the Playstation era we were seeing great creations like Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon. Then sometime when graphics started being called “next gen” and shooters “modern,” the platformer mostly died. Aside from a few good Mario games and the new Rayman, major industry names like Sonic and Spyro have driven themselves into the ground.

Now platformers are the bread and butter of the indie scene, where the simplicity of mechanics and amputation of a spatial dimension makes the games much more budgetarily feasible. There are a number of fantastic examples of the benefits of this shift, with wildly successful titles such as Fez, Cave Story, Braid, Limbo, and Inside. Apart from the basic running and jumping, these games also all share the classification of being “dark.” Not always in pallet, but in tone. Dive deep enough into Fez and you discover a secret language, and Cave Story goes from being about adorable bunny people to torture and the impending end of the world.

I want to blame Limbo for all of this (even though Braid technically came first), but pointing fingers is pointless. The real culprit is us, the consumers that have decided we want things to be edgy and hardcore. I think this has something to do with the split between the casual gaming scene and the “real” gamers, the second category fighting to justify the legitimacy of their hobby while the first just want to flick birds or candies around to temporarily escape the doldrums of their slow march to the grave. Modern gamers value story. The barebones, “the princess is in another castle” shtick honestly wouldn’t fly today. How can I simultaneously laude the golden age of platformers in the first paragraph and dismiss it as outdated in the third? Because while I once was a child with an unbroken heart and not an ounce of jade, times have change.

Oh man that felt good! It’s been awhile since I had a rambly review. But now I’m four paragraphs in and I guess I should start talking about the game I’m actually reviewing. Black The Fall is a brand new puzzle platformer by the people at Sand Sailor Studios. Who really want to be the next Playdead. For you scrubs that don’t know the various indie developers by heart, Playdead are the people that made Limbo and Inside. The big difference being that while Limbo and Inside both started at the outskirts of a terrifying and unforgiving world that you worked your way into, Black The Fall starts at the heart of a terrifying and unforgiving world that you work your way out of.

History can attest to that I genuinely liked Inside, so it would reason that I also like Black The Fall. And I do, mostly, so no big surprises here. Black The Fall is an affordable and fun little puzzle/platformer that does what it sets out to do in an a challenging and interesting way. The puzzles are all solid, mechanics tight, and metaphors clear.

So why don’t I like it as much? It’s a question I’ve been struggling with since I finished it a few days ago. The only satisfying answer I can come up with is consistency. Permeating Black The Fall is an inconsistency of information that makes the whole experience much less pleasurable. There are three basic gameplay mechanics: running/jumping, pointing a laser at things, and directing NPCs with the laser. For such barebones mechanics, there are a surprising amount of times where it’s unclear just what the hell you are supposed to do.

I’m going to speak in generalities as I don’t want to spoil any puzzles. At three different points, I was required to jump onto something that in no way discerned itself from the basic backgrounds. I can understand wanting to hide solutions in plain sight, but every time I encountered this it was just frustrating. I seriously had to look up guides before I went, “oh shit, I can jump on that?” While you can say I should just be more aware, the art style makes this difficult. What is just a general platform/crank in the background for decoration and what is there for me to interact with isn’t super clear. Sure I could just try to jump on everything, but this is the kind of adventure game logic that makes me rub every item on every person just to see what sticks. AKA the worst part of adventure games.

The laser pointer is what sets Black The Fall apart, and leads to some genuinely great puzzles. There were a couple moments that I found kind of annoying, but nothing that would warrant actually giving the game a lesser score. As a mechanic, it’s just kind of underdeveloped. Early on you’re taught that you can use the laser pointer to command your fellow man to do stuff. Sometimes this is flipping a switch, sometimes it’s riding a bike. It’s incorporated into the world very well, but only used a handful of times. Otherwise, your laser is mostly a way to open doors and bounce around at odd angles.

You eventually use it later on with a robot companion, who is adorable. I have no hate for robo-spider-dog. He is amazing.

Overall, the nits I have to pick about Black The Fall don’t amount to a whole negative review. It’s a big too obvious with its political message, but whatever. The puzzles are a bit obtuse at times, but I’m sure if I went into it knowing that I would have looked harder. It’s a solid indie game. Is it worth $15? Sure, even at 3 hours it’s worth it. I doubt I’ll ever go back to it, but I can’t say I didn’t have fun playing it.