FlippUp

It's taken me so long to beat this game. I am unspeakably bad at it. I bought it near on-release and a lot of the early negative reviews reduced it to "just a rage game", which just isn't true. It's beautifully crafted: the fun areas, the pixel art, the style are all incredible. It's clear a lot of work went into this game, but I don't know how valid some of my gripes are since I think they were probably designed to be infuriating. I think a lot of the areas are really cool, especially as you climb higher; the environments definitely gets way more interesting after you board the ship. The only section I legitimately do not like is after boarding the ship in level eight (?) where the flipper controls switch. I am a muscle memory-based creature, you can't do this to me. It wasn't a rewarding section to me at all, it was legitimately just frustrating. But still, I couldn't stop playing this game. Even if I ragequit after like two minutes, I'll be back. I'll always be back. I was looking to fill the void that Celeste left and I got sold cocaine for £8.50. good job everyone

The retro art style is great and the level design is thoughtful and well done. However, there are some caveats with this game, most notably its idiotic "hardcore" philosophy that makes it necessary to repeat all the sections over and over again and again. This doesn't benefit anything except the weird tradition of this "genre" and, of course, just having a bad time as a player. What would be the harm in including plateaus so that you can't fall down further whenever you reached a certain checkpoint? Maybe even let the game be as is and make it an option. As for the ball physics and the strange argument from the devs that this wouldn't be a pinball game because it's supposed to be a Foddy-like first and foremost: "Flipp" is in the name, the game has many flippers, a lot of plungers and a ball. Good luck selling this as not-a-pinball to pinball players ;) Don't mind the physics though: Although I'm not in love with the weightiness of the ball where you sometimes have a hard time getting it airborne properly, the physics are coherent and learnable once you know the spots on the flipper in order to traverse a certain distance or reach a certain height.

I will give the devs another $10 if they promise not to make another one of these. I hate that I like it.

It's Jump King x Pinball! The music and aesthetics are great! The actual pinball part gets irritating because it always feels like you're fighting against the physics and ball weight. Launching the ball to get to the next flipper is a mix of skill and luck, leaning more towards luck if I'm being honest. It seems like you only have 2-3 frames to launch the ball at the exact angle you need. It feels too punishing when I don't even feel in control of the ball because of it. It gets to a point where it stops being fun when I fall down 10 platforms because the ball didn't launch the way I was expecting it to. It seems the developer intends you to make each jump done from a complete stand still, which breaks the flow of the game and slows it down a lot. A pinball platformer sounds awesome on paper, but fighting the physics make this feel too punishing for what I was expecting. If you like tough platformers, I can recommend this game. For anyone else, I would heavily heavily recommend playing the demo first. It likely isn't going to be what you expect this to be. I really wanted to like this game, but it just turned out it wasn't for me after all, which is a shame because there's some great stuff here.

I may edit this review. But currently I cannot recommend this game. I had been waiting ages for it to release. Now upon playing the game everything feels clunky. The ball feels way too heavy and there is a rather annoying delay on the flippers. The tutorial is so frustratingly annoying I'm half temped just to refund already. It's a shame I really had high hopes for this game.

If you like pinball, do not play this game. The controls are laggy and the physics are terrible.

I think if I had to summarize my enjoyment of this game it tips the needle just barely into the positive. The mechanics are really fun to play with, and the art and sound design is really amazing to the point where I'll just sit still on a screen and point out all the little details. The level design is, however, stiflingly aggressive. Like more so than other Foddian games I've played (and loved). I think there's a lot of choices that breach the 'playful annoying' feel games like Getting Over It and Baby Steps are good at.