i have an obsession with flywrench, ill admit. i love its tough as nails, yet really satisfying thread-the-needle gameplay, i adore its banger drum and bass electronic soundtrack, i really enjoy the minimalist, yet striking art style that really doesnt look like anything else. (aside from maybe nidhogg, messhof's other, more well known game) i find myself coming back to flywrench on a constant basis, just booting it up to run through some levels every so often. its a really satisfying game to get good at, and has a really high skill ceiling for the insane stuff you can pull off, as shown in the speedruns. admittedly, im kind of a sucker for games with really weird concepts or controls, and i know that isnt for everyone. not only that, but i do recall the last couple levels to be a little bit too much at times, i think they went a little overboard with the precision required at the sun. that being said, if you're down to try out an experimental platformer, check out flywrench, you wont regret it
Really difficult. But really satisfying to master. Kind of the perfect game. There is so much nuance with how you control the player. So many micro adjustments, and optimizations. You really get to master each level by the time you can beat them.
An absolute banger that should not be overlooked. Incredible soundtrack and kinetic platforming that really pushes you through some really fun levels. At 2 hours and $7, it’s respects both your time and your wallet, and I hope more people check it out
I wish i could forget mercury. But a good and short game with great music otherwise.
This game could’ve been called Floppy Rectangle Space Adventures. But it isn’t. It’s called Flywrench. Say that name out loud to yourself for a second.
“Flywrench.”
Flywrench isn’t called Floppy Rectangle Space Adventures though. It’s called Flywrench. That’s because, like the name “Flywrench” itself, Flywrench goes hard.
I don’t explicitly go out of my way to play a lot of games that require a lot of trial-and-error, namely precision platformers, as I’ve had mixed results with them, but I find myself accidentally playing a good number of them anyway. Celeste, Garlic, and “kaizo” levels of Super Mario Maker come to mind almost immediately, and while it isn’t necessarily a platforming game (there are no platforms, you play as a rectangle floating through lasers), the overall feel of these kinds of games is absolutely present in Flywrench. Other reviews have compared it more directly to Neon White and Kuru Kuru Kururin, and I feel that’s a bit more fair. The main difference between Flywrench and a lot of the “hard-on-purpose” platformers I’ve played though, is that I was (for the most part) never presented with deaths that felt like “total bullshit.” I can almost always see all of the pieces of the platforming puzzle. They usually feel like very clear learning opportunities, or that the mistakes I make are blindingly obvious that I can just quickly try again, with a greater focus on simply not making that mistake this time around.
Whoops, I just accidentally described my experience with Celeste.
It’s generally a little difficult for me to be confident in giving games 5-star ratings, outside of childhood/teenage favorites that I could get into an actual fight with someone about, but Flywrench is pretty easy. It’s such a cool game. It presents to me everything I’m a sucker for in a single package: simple and intuitive objective, precise controls with reasonable (results may vary) room for error, a well-paced difficulty curve utilizing new mechanics in creative ways, minimalist art direction, a bangin’ soundtrack, levels being themed around space and the Solar System…I dunno, this game just fuckin’ rules.
Caveat: I got filtered hard by the Mercury levels, so I haven’t actually completed the game yet. The difficulty ramps up heavily on the last world. That said, the rest of what I played is so damn good it’s worth it just for Pluto through Venus. There’s even a setting in the options that lets you unlock all of the levels anyway if you want, but I’m determined to get through them eventually.
Anyway, play Flywrench. Flywrench is good-ass video games.
Flywrench.
“Flywrench.”
Flywrench isn’t called Floppy Rectangle Space Adventures though. It’s called Flywrench. That’s because, like the name “Flywrench” itself, Flywrench goes hard.
I don’t explicitly go out of my way to play a lot of games that require a lot of trial-and-error, namely precision platformers, as I’ve had mixed results with them, but I find myself accidentally playing a good number of them anyway. Celeste, Garlic, and “kaizo” levels of Super Mario Maker come to mind almost immediately, and while it isn’t necessarily a platforming game (there are no platforms, you play as a rectangle floating through lasers), the overall feel of these kinds of games is absolutely present in Flywrench. Other reviews have compared it more directly to Neon White and Kuru Kuru Kururin, and I feel that’s a bit more fair. The main difference between Flywrench and a lot of the “hard-on-purpose” platformers I’ve played though, is that I was (for the most part) never presented with deaths that felt like “total bullshit.” I can almost always see all of the pieces of the platforming puzzle. They usually feel like very clear learning opportunities, or that the mistakes I make are blindingly obvious that I can just quickly try again, with a greater focus on simply not making that mistake this time around.
Whoops, I just accidentally described my experience with Celeste.
It’s generally a little difficult for me to be confident in giving games 5-star ratings, outside of childhood/teenage favorites that I could get into an actual fight with someone about, but Flywrench is pretty easy. It’s such a cool game. It presents to me everything I’m a sucker for in a single package: simple and intuitive objective, precise controls with reasonable (results may vary) room for error, a well-paced difficulty curve utilizing new mechanics in creative ways, minimalist art direction, a bangin’ soundtrack, levels being themed around space and the Solar System…I dunno, this game just fuckin’ rules.
Caveat: I got filtered hard by the Mercury levels, so I haven’t actually completed the game yet. The difficulty ramps up heavily on the last world. That said, the rest of what I played is so damn good it’s worth it just for Pluto through Venus. There’s even a setting in the options that lets you unlock all of the levels anyway if you want, but I’m determined to get through them eventually.
Anyway, play Flywrench. Flywrench is good-ass video games.
Flywrench.
This review contains spoilers
You gonna die a lot
neon white posited itself as a game By Freaks For Freaks in much of its marketing. not to take away from how excellent that game is but it's published by annapurna for gods sake. flywrench is actually the ultimate freak flag game. you really have to be of a certain mind to get the most out of how this game works. the soundtrack is so killer it's unbelievable how many artists they got to contribute bangers to this thing. both nidhogg and flywrench are the only games I can think of that go for this really distinct simplistic style and absolutely nail it.
flywrench is an unlockable character in super meat boy and messhof also made nidhogg but still no one's ever even heard of this game. what the fuck!!
flywrench is an unlockable character in super meat boy and messhof also made nidhogg but still no one's ever even heard of this game. what the fuck!!
A fun game with a great soundtrack and a simple concept, and gets more difficult the more you play
Gotta come back to this one, it's so tight
OOOHHH banger soundtrack & the design is tighter than a virgin rosebud
best OST
Probably the most fun you can have while giving yourself a migraine. Mechanically beautiful; aesthetically criminal.
Flywrench is a precision 2D flight game with a minimalist but still very stylish presentation. While the levels are very satisfying to beat, the real challenge comes from time trials. I don't enjoy speedrunning so I won't be grinding out the extra challenges, but I did enjoy playing through the story mode. My only complaint is that several times I got stuck on flat walls instead of bouncing off, but that was minor enough to ignore.
It feels like another game once you reach mercury. Sun was a nice way to end it.
stylish as hell, incredible soundtrack, simple yet gripping mechanics and a wildly intense challenge. everything i love about a modern indie game like this. brutal difficulty spike towards the end, but otherwise i love how gradually this game introduces new mechanics and mixes them up with old ones.
however,
ow my fucking fingers
however,
ow my fucking fingers
The first genuinely pleasant surprise of my 2023.
Flywrench's core concept seems so simple in theory, yet is carried out so deftly despite how ankle-breakingly difficult the game gets. You steer this flying contraption that has to maneuver through these tight corridors and have to change to the correct corresponding color (white in neutral state, red when tapping and holding jump, and green when spinning the contraption and bouncing off of yellow walls) to successfully pass through while "platforming." There's not much complexity to the control scheme in terms of movement tech, but the controls are quite sensitive, to where you could sneeze on your controller or accidentally tap the jump button too quickly and you'd find yourself rocketing off into the ceiling. It's not the most elegant platformer out there given the sheer precision required to master the momentum physics, aerial drift, and the eternal struggle against gravity itself, but the raw and sloppy feeling quick-fire movement turns into this thing of beauty when you finally break through and start exploiting the game's systems, flying through levels like a speed demon with no regards for safety.
Without a doubt, this is the fastest platformer I've played to date. That's a good thing; all of the levels minus the final level in the Sun can be realistically cleared in less than 15 seconds (and most in half of that time even). The game never felt unfair in my eyes either, because Messhof does a great job carefully introducing each new related concept (the jump, then the spin, then unpassable pink line barriers, then switches and moving obstacles, etc) and really fleshing out the obstacle escalation to its maximum potential with so many different combinations. The difficulty thus stems less from overwhelming the player with hazards all at once or lengthening levels to punish more heavily, and more from utilizing trickier variations of obstacles to create tighter execution barriers. Since levels are over in a blink of an eye and death is just a quick fade out animation that immediately reloads, there's essentially no time to rage when you've already respawned for another go.
I've always thought that I understood the "controls as an extension of the body" theory, but Flywrench is the first game that really forced me to experience it in action. It's such a blindingly quick experience, that even if you can see the levels coming right at you with the brightly color coded hazards and imagine completing it in your head, it ultimately comes down to a test of pure reaction time. It's less about trusting your inherent skill as a player, and more about throwing your inhibitions away, forgetting about execution/input barriers, and melding with the vessel itself and just doing it outright. You don't really have time to consider the play by play for something as condensed and quickfire as this game; you just have to make it happen. I honestly can't really say any other game has ever put me in this headspace.
It's not a perfect experience: the difficulty spike in the last world (Mercury) is very noticeable as it took me about an hour to clear everything prior and almost two hours to clear Mercury alone, the game has some occasional strange stuttering and frame rate drops which causes extremely noticeable chugging since the game's logic is tied to the frame rate, and the final level feels a tad bit out of place since it's significantly longer than any other level in the game. Despite that, Flywrench is definitely the best "arcade" 2D platformer that I've played to date, and it's somehow criminally overlooked despite being by the creators of Nidhogg. The simple yet distinct energetic retro visuals and the absolutely fire soundtrack only further highlight how this is unlike anything that I've ever played before. Definitely give this a shot if you're looking for a succinct rush of adrenaline that puts practically every other precision platformer I've ever played to shame.
Flywrench's core concept seems so simple in theory, yet is carried out so deftly despite how ankle-breakingly difficult the game gets. You steer this flying contraption that has to maneuver through these tight corridors and have to change to the correct corresponding color (white in neutral state, red when tapping and holding jump, and green when spinning the contraption and bouncing off of yellow walls) to successfully pass through while "platforming." There's not much complexity to the control scheme in terms of movement tech, but the controls are quite sensitive, to where you could sneeze on your controller or accidentally tap the jump button too quickly and you'd find yourself rocketing off into the ceiling. It's not the most elegant platformer out there given the sheer precision required to master the momentum physics, aerial drift, and the eternal struggle against gravity itself, but the raw and sloppy feeling quick-fire movement turns into this thing of beauty when you finally break through and start exploiting the game's systems, flying through levels like a speed demon with no regards for safety.
Without a doubt, this is the fastest platformer I've played to date. That's a good thing; all of the levels minus the final level in the Sun can be realistically cleared in less than 15 seconds (and most in half of that time even). The game never felt unfair in my eyes either, because Messhof does a great job carefully introducing each new related concept (the jump, then the spin, then unpassable pink line barriers, then switches and moving obstacles, etc) and really fleshing out the obstacle escalation to its maximum potential with so many different combinations. The difficulty thus stems less from overwhelming the player with hazards all at once or lengthening levels to punish more heavily, and more from utilizing trickier variations of obstacles to create tighter execution barriers. Since levels are over in a blink of an eye and death is just a quick fade out animation that immediately reloads, there's essentially no time to rage when you've already respawned for another go.
I've always thought that I understood the "controls as an extension of the body" theory, but Flywrench is the first game that really forced me to experience it in action. It's such a blindingly quick experience, that even if you can see the levels coming right at you with the brightly color coded hazards and imagine completing it in your head, it ultimately comes down to a test of pure reaction time. It's less about trusting your inherent skill as a player, and more about throwing your inhibitions away, forgetting about execution/input barriers, and melding with the vessel itself and just doing it outright. You don't really have time to consider the play by play for something as condensed and quickfire as this game; you just have to make it happen. I honestly can't really say any other game has ever put me in this headspace.
It's not a perfect experience: the difficulty spike in the last world (Mercury) is very noticeable as it took me about an hour to clear everything prior and almost two hours to clear Mercury alone, the game has some occasional strange stuttering and frame rate drops which causes extremely noticeable chugging since the game's logic is tied to the frame rate, and the final level feels a tad bit out of place since it's significantly longer than any other level in the game. Despite that, Flywrench is definitely the best "arcade" 2D platformer that I've played to date, and it's somehow criminally overlooked despite being by the creators of Nidhogg. The simple yet distinct energetic retro visuals and the absolutely fire soundtrack only further highlight how this is unlike anything that I've ever played before. Definitely give this a shot if you're looking for a succinct rush of adrenaline that puts practically every other precision platformer I've ever played to shame.
What if Kuru Kuru Kururin... Went Hard
(this is not to imply that Kuru Kuru Kururin does not go hard. It's just Cocomelon-level baby slop compared to this nail-biting freakshow)
(this is not to imply that Kuru Kuru Kururin does not go hard. It's just Cocomelon-level baby slop compared to this nail-biting freakshow)
I tend to favour the term "underappreciated" over "underrated" when describing games, and I think Flywrench falls into that category. No doubt that the people who play it think it's great, but the problem is that not enough people seem to appreciate this wonderfully tight package.
It's tough to sell someone on a game most succinctly described as "Flappy Bird meets precision platforming," but I think this game really deserves a place among the likes of Celeste and Super Meat Boy. It's rare to find a precision game of this quality even in 2022.
What I think tends to shoo your typical platforming masochists away from Flywrench is the fact that it's not a traditional platforming engine in the slightest. But at its core it shares much of that design philosophy. Levels are clear in objective but hard in execution, restarts are quick and seamless, and reaching the end of a level can be such a hit of dopamine you might need to take a breather.
While the difficulty spike on the last set of levels is a little much, I can't even fault it for that. Once you've learned all the mechanics Flywrench takes off the training wheels and really lets loose. It's something that I wish more games would do in fact. Often times you're introduced to mechanic after mechanic only for the game to end before they all come together. I'm looking at you, Slime-San.
One could also argue that the game is a bit short - I beat all 170 levels in about 2 hours of gameplay - but even that can't be too much of a negative considering the extra modes, challenges and achievements available to the most hardcore players. There's even Steam Workshop support for extra levels, though I can't speak to the quality of those.
I often find myself wishing for more platformers with a focus on precision, but this game proves that you can tweak the formula and still end up with something that captures that same magic.
It's tough to sell someone on a game most succinctly described as "Flappy Bird meets precision platforming," but I think this game really deserves a place among the likes of Celeste and Super Meat Boy. It's rare to find a precision game of this quality even in 2022.
What I think tends to shoo your typical platforming masochists away from Flywrench is the fact that it's not a traditional platforming engine in the slightest. But at its core it shares much of that design philosophy. Levels are clear in objective but hard in execution, restarts are quick and seamless, and reaching the end of a level can be such a hit of dopamine you might need to take a breather.
While the difficulty spike on the last set of levels is a little much, I can't even fault it for that. Once you've learned all the mechanics Flywrench takes off the training wheels and really lets loose. It's something that I wish more games would do in fact. Often times you're introduced to mechanic after mechanic only for the game to end before they all come together. I'm looking at you, Slime-San.
One could also argue that the game is a bit short - I beat all 170 levels in about 2 hours of gameplay - but even that can't be too much of a negative considering the extra modes, challenges and achievements available to the most hardcore players. There's even Steam Workshop support for extra levels, though I can't speak to the quality of those.
I often find myself wishing for more platformers with a focus on precision, but this game proves that you can tweak the formula and still end up with something that captures that same magic.
what a great game. Simple to understand incredibly difficult to beat, a great example of how good level design can carry a few mechanics a long way!
flywranch
Very tightly designed game, incredibly difficult.