Rumblebox takes place in a horrible nightmare world wherein any impact more severe than that of a raindrop upon your head causes you to crumble into a pile of death and disappointment. The residents of this horrifying world entertain themselves by putting a whole bunch of themselves inside tiny roofless boxes and beating the crap out of each other until they can climb out of the box on the corpses of their friends and neighbors.
For a game this dark, the aesthetic sure is charming. Everything is colored in delightful pastels and the characters all consist of basic shapes, giving them the kind of derpy appeal demonstrated by the things in Sumotori.
Now, hold on a second. Did I just say that characters composed of the same basic shapes crumble at such great rates that you literally climb upon them as if they were part of the floor? Yes, I did. Wouldn't that make for an absolute mess of a visual experience, leaving you with no idea where you or anything else resides? Yes, as a matter of fact. It does. To the game's credit, it tries to avoid this by coloring your character in blue, whereas blue is only a secondary color in some of your enemies. It helps a bit, but the game is still painful to look at. Couldn't my character consist of pyramids, the enemies of cubes, and the dead people of disembodied parallelograms or, I don't know, something?
You are given two methods by which to dispatch your enemies, a percussive attack (space) and a grapple (ctrl or alt). The control scheme holds up well, and while it may seem anemic, your character has different attacks depending on what angle your target is standing at and where you're moving and how fast. This keeps the spectacle from getting old, or at least it would if I didn't end up staring at my health bar 90% of the time because it's the only thing that doesn't make me nauseous and gives me a clear idea of when I get hit.
The gameplay is varied enough to keep your attention. The main game has bonus levels in between its regular levels, all of which are difficult and surprisingly not frustrating. I mean, it's still a pain when a pile of cubes you thought was dead punches you in the back, but it happens far less than one might expect. There's also challenge mode, which, as far as I can tell, is just the main game but with a bazillion times more enemies, which makes the whole thing even more of an incomprehensible mess.
Final verdict: If the idea of mashing space and the arrow keys until the game tells you you've died sounds fun to you, then go right ahead and give this game a shot. It's expertly crafted and commits no unforgivable sins. If you're the kind of gamer who values direction and clear motivations, like I am, this one's probably not going to satisfy.
That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay pugnacious.
Links
you're dead, you're dead, I'm dead, you're dead: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=505
