- Game provided by the publisher
- RGJG was tested on a PC composed of a RTX 3080, indispensable to play in 4K a pixel art game.
- The graphic options used are as follows: "OUT A FUND" in 4K.
- Your humble tester didn't finish the game 100%
On Tuesday night, an ordinary day if it is not that the heat wave is full, taking with it its daily tribute of thirsty grabataires. Under the heights of this charming Alsatian duplex, the temperature is close to that of my toaster and it would be easy to cook an omelette on my velux, if my eggs had not already rancid under the heat. More than a few degrees and the mercury will soon drip from the thermometer about to implode. Saying that it would be enough to click on my desk to get close to the apoplexy... And if we made one last part of RunGunJumpGun To sweat one last time?
Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Behind this curious title is probably one of the most busy games of recent years since the indo-masochist bursting initiated by Super Meat Boy and his apostles, VVVVVVV or Cloudberry kingdom. If you thought that the niche was now filled, misunderstand, the last Dutch publisher's production Gambitious plans to take its part in the spacecake. At the crossroads of Platformer, shoot them up acid, Runner frenetic and the tortured headache, this is a real fun chimera, where your nerves will be put to the test. A psychedelic cocktail with a touch of pixel art as bad as it is, as if Samus had been coquined with Jetpack Joyride on an acid evening. One thing is certain, Thirty Three games knows how to achalander the old cracks of the arcade.
Run Forest, run!
The environments sparkle with fluo hues, sometimes purple, sometimes red or ochre, suddenly oscillating towards green. Add to this a sound layer of electro history to put straight into the atmosphere and here you are on the starting blocks. As a scenario question, we are still in the great tradition of die and retry with a synopsis that usually holds on a subbock and that's so much better. Rungunjumpgun – RGJG, for intimates – does not derogate from the rule. Thus the greed of the warlords would have precipitated the galaxy into chaos, awakening the anger of the sun God who ravaged the Earth, immediately reduced to ashes in retaliation. Light capsules, atomiks, have been scattered in the universe and it is up to you to recover them to avenge your forefathers and win the heart of the star. These dramatic issues of high voltig are also more generously exposed on the dedicated website than in the game, the opportunity to admire some gif in the form of a comic book. Each end of the level is punctuated with a few absurd phrases distilled throughout the game, the opportunity to immerse a little more in this deluded universe, like the Wario Ware And his upuesque screens. « Will you get some space cream? » throws us a gestilla in yogurt language. Let's have a good time!
Hello Mom bobo
The concept is one cannot be simpler, on paper at least: two buttons, one to shoot down, which propels our reckless hero into the air by acting as a jetpack lowcost, the other to shoot from the face, in order to destroy the numerous pitfalls, which spread the stages and for the most hard ones, in the prospect of coming to the end of the ships, little avarice in distributions of free dumplings. So far everything is fine as a man in a free fall would say, rushed from the top of a skyscraper. But it would be a mistake. scrolling horizontal at the infernal rate, which takes us very quickly to the pipe breaker. Here no time to mount any strategy to grasp the levels of a handful of frenzied seconds. No tactic either, it will be necessary to react quickly and find the optimal path under penalty of squashing against a propeller and at the risk of being caught up by the scrolling.
All the subtlety lies in an alternative gameplay, where pressing both buttons at the same time cancels the desired combined effect. So it is strictly impossible to feed a support shot first while propelling down. Logical will you retort me, since our character only has a coquette gatling to move and defend. Choosing is giving up as we say in the jargon and the constant dilemma between the two fires will be a great part of the experience. Where this becomes interesting, it is that we rarely have the opportunity to have feet on earth between the ground and the ceilings lined with ties.
Try, do or do not
Death is always at the end of the tunnel, while we sometimes see the light, so near and yet so far away. Until the last moment, the developers are given to hearty joy to put an end to our progress with an obstacle cleverly placed here, a cross fire of flame lance by there or a simple gust of well fed dumplings at the detour of a corridor. Often, there is an oscillation between plague and cholera: is it better to have a small chop or to simmer on a wall of peaks? Because each ambush leads to another, so that you will have to understand by failure to overcome the twisted traps designed by the three vices of Thirty Three games. The game is composed of three worlds, themselves subdivided into about forty levels, each with progressive difficulty. The most experienced will have all the time to break the chicots to recover the 1224 atomiks game. A difficult challenge for masochists, of course. Beware of poltrons, RGJG also offers a mode speedrun with world ranking at the key or the opportunity to illustrate on the entire planet between informed dolorists.
Push it to the limit
To cut the grass under the foot of potential objectors who would argue with the random propensity of victories, it is necessary to play to understand how all the experience relies on the skill the most primary. Luck actually has very little room here. If at first glance it would often be tempted to believe that the enterprise is impossible, even more so in the last levels, the margin of progression is exponential. Another approach sometimes comes out of the impasse in a fraction of a second. And an internship, however complicated it may be, will – almost – be a « play » Once the level is crossed. It must be said that the flow rate is constant and RGJG is particularly good at the flow traps and enemies. Every mistake punishes us with a return to the starting box without time dead, nor break of OST, so that a frenzy gradually grabs the player, caught by this new psychotropic world that opens to him. The timing is master just as the management of the free fall essential to overcome the last levels. It's often in extremis If the previous 347 deaths are ignored, they will be left unharmed. The total is also carefully counted on the main menu, of which the fanfares who usually plastron on youtube.
I must break you
It is therefore not just a question of reflex, but of learning by error, where perseverance ends up triumphing. Once we're done, we play a real master score. The scum on the lips, the beard, we end up working hard to convince ourselves that it wasn't so complicated after all. The impossible suddenly becomes possible with a simple click, while the victory is taken away at the last moment, this famous moment of unparalleled ecstasy, where the player manages to dethrone the machine and its pernicious algorithms. Special mention at aquatic levels, where ingenuity is necessary. Head upside down, gameplay takes on a completely different dimension. However, RGJG is never unfair and assimilation of patterns, understanding its most intimate mechanisms ends up bearing fruit.
The scoundrels of die and retry can rejoice, RGJG keeps its promises. These three young Canadian developers can pride themselves on being able to integrate the essence of many arcade tenors, without falling into the pitfall of pastiche. If the third world is willingly presented as their iteration of « Water temple » by Thirty Three games, that the teleportation portals and the inverted aquatic gravity are not without reminding VVVVVV, the title manages each time to deliver its own vision, its stunning universe, where each internship knows how to renew itself in a constant auction, an invitation to excess that cannot be declined.
VERDICT
RGJG borrows a lot from the classics of video game but manages to exceed the basic codes by a good old melting pot of genres. Although the levels are particularly succinct, there are no superfluous menus or untimely kinematics that tarnish this crazy race, so that it is hard to let go of the controller, when we thought only to play a modest quarter hour. RGJG is a beautiful unassisted gameplay lesson, which knows how to go crescendo to not lose anyone on the way, without ever creating a feeling of injustice. He may be criticized for not offering boss fights or his OST a little too agreed compared to titles like Hot Line Miami or more recently the excellent Furi. The absence of a gif generator as Towerfall allows in particular is also regrettable. If necessary, it was an opportunity to immortalize prestigious moments of bravery. But these are just some minor defects that can be remedied with a bit of Aphex Twin in the second task here and a video capture software from the other. RGJG remains, however, an ode to the nevrotic and addictive gameplay, a plea for pain, a real hymn at the address, which will awaken your purest ludobido. Summer will be hot, very hot! Then let's not be afraid to burn our wings.
For
- Devilly addictive
- Pulsing OST...
Against
- No boss
- ...but repetitive
Great test!!!
Gracias amigo! 😎
GG!