Cruel World is a mingleplayer masocore platformer set in a game world that degrades based on player choice. It is only available on April 1, 2021.
Reviews View More
Cruel World (blame everybody else) is a neat concept for an asynchronous multiplayer game. The game launched with lots of checkpoints, but as people played they could claim ownership of these checkpoints, making the game harder for everyone else, and they can lay mines in checkpoints to kill you. Players can work together to hack checkpoints, in order to gain access.
The platforming itself is interesting and challenging. It has a unique platforming mechanic involving rolling and bouncing off of things that's hard to describe. It deserves a lot of credit for being a platformer that works differently than any other platformer.
The platforming itself is interesting and challenging. It has a unique platforming mechanic involving rolling and bouncing off of things that's hard to describe. It deserves a lot of credit for being a platformer that works differently than any other platformer.
cool little experimental game that makes some very interesting design choices. i would say it's worth the few dollars, but now that it's the 2nd the only way you can get it is piracy (which the developer appears to be fine with).
it's a difficult platformer with weird and slippery but fun physics. i can't say whether this is just me being bad at platformers or what but the hardest room took me about an hour to get both of the keys in it. it's not very long even if you're trying to get every key possible, though. someone who plays more 2D platformers than i do would probably have more to say about that aspect of the game; i just know it works quite well.
the real interesting part is the hacking system. to use any save point, information board, or certain doors, you need to "hack" them. this grants you temporary access. if you want to make that permanent you can use the "mine" command - the thing is, though, that makes it harder for everyone else who plays the game to hack that object. i played late in the day yesterday and there were already around 10 owners on average per object, and it's just gonna get worse. that is, unless you decide to forgo the benefit of permanent access to help everyone else out. it's a simple but interesting exploration of acting selfishly vs altruistically. i would say there's a lot of further room to explore this concept, but with a bigger or more complex game it would kinda just make for a miserable experience for people who didn't play early. with Cruel World, the whole thing is short enough that other people's greed doesn't add enough difficulty to make it unenjoyable. the mechanics are simple enough that even if the tutorial board got to like 100 owners it wouldn't be too hard to figure them out by playing.
if what you're looking for is simply a platformer, there's probably more interesting (and easier to obtain) stuff out there for you, but if you're interested in a cool little experiment in design, i would highly recommend Cruel World.
edit: it's available again (that didn't take long lol) and it's been updated
it's a difficult platformer with weird and slippery but fun physics. i can't say whether this is just me being bad at platformers or what but the hardest room took me about an hour to get both of the keys in it. it's not very long even if you're trying to get every key possible, though. someone who plays more 2D platformers than i do would probably have more to say about that aspect of the game; i just know it works quite well.
the real interesting part is the hacking system. to use any save point, information board, or certain doors, you need to "hack" them. this grants you temporary access. if you want to make that permanent you can use the "mine" command - the thing is, though, that makes it harder for everyone else who plays the game to hack that object. i played late in the day yesterday and there were already around 10 owners on average per object, and it's just gonna get worse. that is, unless you decide to forgo the benefit of permanent access to help everyone else out. it's a simple but interesting exploration of acting selfishly vs altruistically. i would say there's a lot of further room to explore this concept, but with a bigger or more complex game it would kinda just make for a miserable experience for people who didn't play early. with Cruel World, the whole thing is short enough that other people's greed doesn't add enough difficulty to make it unenjoyable. the mechanics are simple enough that even if the tutorial board got to like 100 owners it wouldn't be too hard to figure them out by playing.
if what you're looking for is simply a platformer, there's probably more interesting (and easier to obtain) stuff out there for you, but if you're interested in a cool little experiment in design, i would highly recommend Cruel World.
edit: it's available again (that didn't take long lol) and it's been updated