SLIDE: Platformer Preview

SLIDE: Platformer is one of those games where you’re going to die. A lot. Even if you don’t do what I did and rush the levels to get the best possible time on your first try. Your movements all have to be precise and your patience needs to be durable.

At its base, there is no story in SLIDE: Platformer. Your only goal is to take control of your character, who happens to be a tiny green blob, and make your way to the end of the level as fast as you can. While there are no time limits on levels, you get graded on how quickly you reach the end of the level, and the elitist inside me would never settle for a finish unless it was as fast as I could do it, even restarting levels that I found difficult if I got to the end too slowly.

Your method of traversing your small blob from one end of the level to the other is jumping and, well, that’s it. You can slide underneath obstacles, but even that is automatically topped with a small hop. The unique part of this is that, by pressing down on a number of the movement keys as you jump, there are many different ways and angles to be launched at. Mastering these techniques will be vital to completing the levels, especially with a creditable time.

Once wall-jumping is brought into the mix, that’s where things get really fun. Sliding up walls, not long jumping too quickly, angling a high-arching jump to climb up the wall without hitting any spikes. The game introduces these different mechanics at a slow pace, giving you a couple of levels to get used to them before throwing in another technique that you need to learn. However, once you learn everything you need to, the game throws you straight into the deep end, with levels that require all these movements to be executed on moving walls with pinpoint accuracy and timing.

The music of the game is surprisingly therapeutic. It wasn’t fast paced and upbeat like most games of this genre have, but instead was a slow melody that was a great assist in not wanting to punch something. My only problem was that, if the song finished before you beat a level, it took about a minute before it looped back to the start, leaving you with an awkward emptiness for a surprisingly long time.

At first the game can feel like it’s unresponsive to your controls, but you’ll soon realise this is because you’re doing it wrong. While it introduces you to them nicely, it doesn’t tell you how to successfully do them; you’re going to have to figure out how to use them to your advantage yourself.

Overall, SLIDE: Platformer is a great way to kill an hour or two. It’s innovative and does what it intends to and, when it isn’t infuriating, it’s rewarding. The only problem is, once the difficulty shoots up, it stops being rewarding and thus, stops being fun. I’m the kind of person who struggles to focus upon a game for too long, and the sudden increase in difficulty made me unfortunately lose interest in what was otherwise looking to be an interesting and fun game.