Colorful [Review]

Help Dave beat his depression while avoiding all environmental hazards in Colorful

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Platformers have been a genre where independent developers often revisit on making some of their games. One of the best being Super Meat Boy, which I can personally attest to as being quite an agonizing challenge if you want to unlock everything. The challenge is fun, but the burnout from a high challenge factor can burn out the morale, which can be demoralizing. While a platforming game is supposed to be challenging, I personally feel they shouldn’t be extremely masochistic in the ways they challenge a player. In the midst of this thought, I was introduced to Colorful by a friend. Let’s take a look through Colorful as a whole and see if it meets the goal of being challenging, yet introspective.

Colorful has a fun and satirical plot. You play Dave, who is on anti-depressants to help regulate his violent mood swings. He needs to keep taking his medication or he becomes a depressed guy, but the world just seems to keep barring him maintaining the dose. Collect all the medication capsules in the level before the time is up to keep Dave happy and mellow. However, don’t go too fast or you will either overdose on anti-depressants, or Dave won’t have enough medication by the end of the levels. Also, on top of Dave’s quest to take his medication there are Downers, which are emo-haired people that walk about stages and are “walking fountains of tears” with contagious sadness that will depress Dave. The poor guy has his work cut out for him, all just to prevent himself from going into mood swings. The cherry on top is that the game is stylized in 8-bit with some great chiptune music for a nostalgic throwback.

Colorful

The premise ties into the plot when you control Dave to complete the stage while collecting all of the medication and maintaining Dave’s dose with a timer counting down. The important focal theme is that there is a rhythm for completing a stage that is rooted in speed, rate of picking up medication, and movement skills. To help acquaint players with the platforming and management mechanics, there is a 6 level tutorial that is very good in preparing the player for all the challenges ahead. After the tutorial is completed, you are free to play the “Score Panic” mode which is the main game split over 60 levels, or loading up custom levels to play. The progression is gradual in addition to being very thoughtful. In addition, the stages do not feel cheap and petty as far as losing goes. That’s a good thing, personally, as burnout is a problem that many challenging platformers face as a hurdle to attracting a wider audience.

In addition to the main game mode, I previously mentioned about being able to play custom levels. The interesting part about this is that the levels are made by an image editor and an XML file. There is a guide on how to make custom levels as a readme file in the game’s install folder as well. I feel this is a fun touch and for those who like custom levels, this is a step above most PC-oriented platforming games. In addition to this, any custom levels can be shared and downloaded to the player’s content. It’s a great way to expand the playability of Colorful.

Colorful

Colorful stands out as a platforming game that is easy to start, raises the bar of challenges in progression steadily, and encourages a player to take closer stock of their skills. It definitely emanates a retro 8-bit feel from the music and will sadly be lost on those who didn’t live/grow up with a classic Nintendo in their home. There were moments where I got obsessed with a perfect 3 star rating, but when I either overdosed or didn’t perfectly clear a stage I didn’t get raging anger from it. Rather, I felt deep introspective and began to analyze patterns and movements. This then inspired me to break bad performance habits I had in an imperfect run with hopes of getting that perfect finish. This is what I personally feel a great retro styled, challenge focused platformer should be all about. The amusing premise of helping your protagonist Dave just adds a bit of fun flavor to the mix. Colorful is available on Desura for $9.99 and there is a demo available as well. The demo also gives you the ability to play the tutorial completely (all 6 parts) and then lets you play levels 1-10.


Colorful Release Trailer – Desura

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Long Diep
Long Diep
Long Diep

MASH Veteran

Long is an classic game fanatic who has a fond love of arcade games. He is a fan of fighting games and racing simulations and loves playing them with good friends. His true love is with Japanese curtain fire, "bullet hell" shooters. He is a gamer who believes that sometimes the best gaming gear can make the difference between a better experience in a game to increased game play skills. Even though he likes his unique games, he does enjoy FPS games, RPG's, and various other games. Long has a so

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