I've got a couple of games on the go at the minute, both of them for Nintendo's Switch.
I'm not going to bother reviewing them on here, because one of them - Monster Boy And The Cursed Kingdom - came out last year, and the other - Cuphead - might be new to Switch, but it was released on the Xbox One 18 months ago.
Nevertheless, they share, in ways both superficial and profound, certain similarities. They're both, technically, platform games, and they're both absolutely gorgeous.
And yet one of them makes me want to give my Switch a big lick, and thank it for being there for me, and the other makes me want to hurl it out of the window.
And then jump out of the window, and stamp up and down on it over and over and over.
And then dissolve the bits in acid, so that I'm never tempted to play it again.
I'm not going to bother reviewing them on here, because one of them - Monster Boy And The Cursed Kingdom - came out last year, and the other - Cuphead - might be new to Switch, but it was released on the Xbox One 18 months ago.
Nevertheless, they share, in ways both superficial and profound, certain similarities. They're both, technically, platform games, and they're both absolutely gorgeous.
And yet one of them makes me want to give my Switch a big lick, and thank it for being there for me, and the other makes me want to hurl it out of the window.
And then jump out of the window, and stamp up and down on it over and over and over.
And then dissolve the bits in acid, so that I'm never tempted to play it again.
MONSTER! MONSTER!
Monster Boy starts out quite deceptively simple, as a trad platformer, before you acquire the ability to flick between different monster forms, which their own unique abilities. It's not quite a full (and I shudder and vomit to use this term) "Metroidvania" experience, as there's little backtracking, but as it progresses you'll learn which monster form is the best in any given situation.
As you continue, you can purchase or find new weapons, gear can be upgraded, and the stages are fiendishly designed in such a way that you're required to switch between several different monsters mid-flow.
What I love most about Monster Boy is how it builds. It's a steady learning curve, introducing you gradually to each of your abilities. It starts out easy, but two-thirds of the way through - even as you become ever more powerful - it becomes properly challenging.
There was one moment, quite a way into it, where I spent the best part of a day just trying one particular section over and over and over again, putting down the Switch, picking it up again, until - eventually - I succeeded.
Normally I'd have given up long before that point, yet at no time did it ever feel unfair. Even when I've had to attempt a stage a dozen or more times, my failure felt like my own. I've rushed, or got flustered, or distracted, or bun-fingered; I'm the stupid one, not the game.
That, to me, is the mark of perfect design; where you a game encourages the player to keep going, even when they fall repeatedly.
Cuphead is... well... different.
Monster Boy starts out quite deceptively simple, as a trad platformer, before you acquire the ability to flick between different monster forms, which their own unique abilities. It's not quite a full (and I shudder and vomit to use this term) "Metroidvania" experience, as there's little backtracking, but as it progresses you'll learn which monster form is the best in any given situation.
As you continue, you can purchase or find new weapons, gear can be upgraded, and the stages are fiendishly designed in such a way that you're required to switch between several different monsters mid-flow.
What I love most about Monster Boy is how it builds. It's a steady learning curve, introducing you gradually to each of your abilities. It starts out easy, but two-thirds of the way through - even as you become ever more powerful - it becomes properly challenging.
There was one moment, quite a way into it, where I spent the best part of a day just trying one particular section over and over and over again, putting down the Switch, picking it up again, until - eventually - I succeeded.
Normally I'd have given up long before that point, yet at no time did it ever feel unfair. Even when I've had to attempt a stage a dozen or more times, my failure felt like my own. I've rushed, or got flustered, or distracted, or bun-fingered; I'm the stupid one, not the game.
That, to me, is the mark of perfect design; where you a game encourages the player to keep going, even when they fall repeatedly.
Cuphead is... well... different.
NIPPLES
I wanted to play Cuphead the first time I saw it running. It appeared to be - and indeed, is - a stunning, interactive, recreation of early-20th Century animation, right down to the jazz soundtrack, and the subtle blurring of the colours, which gives it that authentic retro look. Without any degree of doubt, it's an astonishing artistic achievement.
Admittedly, there has been a bit of backlash recently, in relation to said animation's apparently racist origins, but there's no denying that, for better or worse, they've nailed the style.
Except... I never bothered getting it on the Xbox One. Partly because I hardly ever turn on my Xbox One, and partly because the reviews put me off. Don't get me wrong; the reviews were, by and large, positive, but they all mentioned how difficult Cuphead can be, and I thought "Yeah, might not be for me".
It is, essentially, the run-and-gun platformer equivalent of Dark Souls; a succession of bosses, where victory requires you to endure repeated failure so that you can learn each level's patterns. And even then, losing a single slice of your health bar means you might as well just quit and start the level again. It's basically like that from the moment you first start playing.
Some people love that. I mean, the Dark Souls series is really popular. Personally, I don't get it - it just feels like masochism to me - but I appreciate that loads of people get off on it, in the same way that some people like having crocodile clips applied to their nipples, I suppose.
It's an old-fashioned approach to game design, but one which I thought had died out. It's rooted in the challenge of arcades, where games were deliberately difficult so that players would keep sinking in the coins. And that's probably my issue; that worked out great for arcade owners, but the odds were always stacked unfairly against the player. The house always won.
It's gaming without a safety net, and while I get that there can be a certain thrill in such endeavours, for me the eventual pay-off is never worth the journey. Even in a game as beautiful as Cuphead.
To my eyes, it demonstrates a lazy approach to game design when difficulty is artificially raised in such a way, by limiting lives or checkpoints, or by throwing so much at a player that they're going to fail more often than they'll succeed.
Admittedly, some games go the other way, and throw challenge out of the window altogether. I managed to complete Yoshi's Crafted World without breaking a sweat, but Monster Boy succeeds in bridging the best of both worlds, with one of the most perfectly-pitched levels of challenge I've ever seen in a game.
I wanted to play Cuphead the first time I saw it running. It appeared to be - and indeed, is - a stunning, interactive, recreation of early-20th Century animation, right down to the jazz soundtrack, and the subtle blurring of the colours, which gives it that authentic retro look. Without any degree of doubt, it's an astonishing artistic achievement.
Admittedly, there has been a bit of backlash recently, in relation to said animation's apparently racist origins, but there's no denying that, for better or worse, they've nailed the style.
Except... I never bothered getting it on the Xbox One. Partly because I hardly ever turn on my Xbox One, and partly because the reviews put me off. Don't get me wrong; the reviews were, by and large, positive, but they all mentioned how difficult Cuphead can be, and I thought "Yeah, might not be for me".
It is, essentially, the run-and-gun platformer equivalent of Dark Souls; a succession of bosses, where victory requires you to endure repeated failure so that you can learn each level's patterns. And even then, losing a single slice of your health bar means you might as well just quit and start the level again. It's basically like that from the moment you first start playing.
Some people love that. I mean, the Dark Souls series is really popular. Personally, I don't get it - it just feels like masochism to me - but I appreciate that loads of people get off on it, in the same way that some people like having crocodile clips applied to their nipples, I suppose.
It's an old-fashioned approach to game design, but one which I thought had died out. It's rooted in the challenge of arcades, where games were deliberately difficult so that players would keep sinking in the coins. And that's probably my issue; that worked out great for arcade owners, but the odds were always stacked unfairly against the player. The house always won.
It's gaming without a safety net, and while I get that there can be a certain thrill in such endeavours, for me the eventual pay-off is never worth the journey. Even in a game as beautiful as Cuphead.
To my eyes, it demonstrates a lazy approach to game design when difficulty is artificially raised in such a way, by limiting lives or checkpoints, or by throwing so much at a player that they're going to fail more often than they'll succeed.
Admittedly, some games go the other way, and throw challenge out of the window altogether. I managed to complete Yoshi's Crafted World without breaking a sweat, but Monster Boy succeeds in bridging the best of both worlds, with one of the most perfectly-pitched levels of challenge I've ever seen in a game.
HINGES
I'm not saying it's wrong to make games where success hinges on your ability to dodge enemy attacks at precisely the right moment, but what I can say - with complete confidence - is that they're not for me. How is it enjoyable to put myself through something that, to me anyway, feels like revising for an exam?
I like fairness, I like feeling that the odds are even - not stacked in favour of the game designers. I don't like the difficulty being so high from the off that I'm never going to see all the hard work that has clearly gone into the visuals.
I find it such a shame; Cuphead is so gorgeous that it deserves to be seen by more people. On purely aesthetic terms, it's the sort of game which demonstrates the potential of games as an art form.
There's just something unpleasantly elitist about it.
Such games feel like the gaming equivalent of arthouse films; just as a film snob wouldn't consider you a proper film fan if you preferred, say, Avengers over some pretentious, black and white, French language meditation on adultery told through the prism of baguettes and pastries, making games so challenging right off the bat is a barrier for the majority of people who might otherwise enjoy it.
And, of course, you get the usual twats who think there's some degree of pride to be had in being a "proper gamer", as if such a thing wasn't, in fact, slightly sad and tragic.
Unfortunately, the difficulty has coloured the Cuphead experience for me. Yes, there's a ton of artistry on display, but I can't enjoy it because I'm too busy just trying to get through it. It feels like a chore, rather than a piece of entertainment.
Just as with arthouse cinema, getting to the end isn't so much a feeling of elation, as a feeling of self-satisfaction that I'm intellectual - or "gud" - enough to get it. It's snobbery... and sorry, the artists of StudioMDHR, but because of that I'm never going to see the vast majority of what your game has to offer.
I'm not saying it's wrong to make games where success hinges on your ability to dodge enemy attacks at precisely the right moment, but what I can say - with complete confidence - is that they're not for me. How is it enjoyable to put myself through something that, to me anyway, feels like revising for an exam?
I like fairness, I like feeling that the odds are even - not stacked in favour of the game designers. I don't like the difficulty being so high from the off that I'm never going to see all the hard work that has clearly gone into the visuals.
I find it such a shame; Cuphead is so gorgeous that it deserves to be seen by more people. On purely aesthetic terms, it's the sort of game which demonstrates the potential of games as an art form.
There's just something unpleasantly elitist about it.
Such games feel like the gaming equivalent of arthouse films; just as a film snob wouldn't consider you a proper film fan if you preferred, say, Avengers over some pretentious, black and white, French language meditation on adultery told through the prism of baguettes and pastries, making games so challenging right off the bat is a barrier for the majority of people who might otherwise enjoy it.
And, of course, you get the usual twats who think there's some degree of pride to be had in being a "proper gamer", as if such a thing wasn't, in fact, slightly sad and tragic.
Unfortunately, the difficulty has coloured the Cuphead experience for me. Yes, there's a ton of artistry on display, but I can't enjoy it because I'm too busy just trying to get through it. It feels like a chore, rather than a piece of entertainment.
Just as with arthouse cinema, getting to the end isn't so much a feeling of elation, as a feeling of self-satisfaction that I'm intellectual - or "gud" - enough to get it. It's snobbery... and sorry, the artists of StudioMDHR, but because of that I'm never going to see the vast majority of what your game has to offer.
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