During the recent Steam sale, a pal of mine directed my attention to a game called Human: Fall Flat, which was 50 per cent off at the time. Given the price of entry was just over $US7 ($8.84), I decided it was worth a shot.
The idea is pretty simple – navigating a number of physics-based challenges with a character that handles like a drunk toddler. Add other players into the mix and what you get is absolute mayhem.
Last night, myself and 4 pals played through a few of the maps and I honestly can’t remember the last time I laughed as hard, and I laugh all the goddamn time. There was 6 of us at one point, but the last person declared that he “didn’t have enough weed for this” and promptly disconnected.
It definitely has that party game vibe, so I can understand how being inebriated would enhance the experience, but I was sober as fuck and had a great time.
Each level of the game increases in difficulty as you progress, tasking you with trickier puzzles and obstacles, many of which can be overcome in a number of different ways. For example, the first room of the construction level can be completed by stacking mattresses to jump over the wall, breaking the window to climb through, or simply by pulling the wooden planks off the boarded up door and walking through it.
The controls have a purposeful clunk to them which adds to the novelty of the whole experience. Your character stumbles around like an idiot while each mouse button controls an arm. There’s nothing to stop you from simply grabbing a hold of your buddy and walking him straight off the edge of the map.
Death, however, has no consequences, it simply throws you back to your group’s last checkpoint area, so killing each other just becomes a funny thing to do, which is why we did it often. While most of us were keen on actually solving the puzzles, there was one who got off on griefing the entire process.
For the purpose of this article, we’ll call him Martin – because that’s his name – and he lives to be a pain in the ass. He’s the guy who says “LET’S GET THE CRATE” in PUBG when it drops so far away you can barely see it. In Human: Fall Flat, Martin’s sole purpose was ruining the game, and at some points, he certainly succeeded.
The power plant level of the game had us lugging around a bunch of batteries and generators from room to room in order to open certain doors. If Martin wasn’t simply throwing vital crates off the edge of the map (which forces them to respawn a few rooms back) he was hijacking the forklift that we needed to move a generator.
When things were going well, you could always count on Martin to grab onto you like a scared child and refuse to let go. The game does a tremendous job of emulating the feeling of being held back by others, but above all, it never stops being fun. In fact, I’d argue that it made the experience even funner.
He was the bratty toddler who needed supervision at all times. If things were quiet for too long, it was always followed by one of us asking nervously, “where the fuck is Martin?”
But at a certain point, we all knew how to deal with him – two people had to hold him down while the rest of us completed the puzzles. It was the only way.
I can’t vouch for whether the game holds up from a single-player perspective, but if you’ve got some pals willing to jump in with you, it’s definitely worth your time. Unfortunately, the Steam sale is over now, so the price is $US14.99 ($18.93), but to be fair, I’d probably still pay that. It’s also available on PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox One.
To give you an idea of the madness, suss out the video by YouTube channel, Blitz, below.
