Backlog Beatdown: A Chicken with a Sword in Cluckles' Adventure

Cluckles’ Adventure came to my attention when I used to watch the Co-Optional Podcast with TotalBiscuit, Jesse Cox, Dodger and their guests. This game appeared in the releases section where they did a quick run-down of the games that were scheduled for launch; Cluckles came up in one of those and I found the premise fascinating.

Just to reiterate: A chicken with a sword.

Cluckles’ Adventure is a delightful little game about a chicken with a sword, who has to travel around 108 levels in three different environments saving the captured chicks and killing the minions. Cluckles can jump, double jump, slide down walls and do a kind of dash attack, and that’s basically it. You can only take one hit before you die and have to start the level again, although you can pick up armour and a shield later on to allow you to take more hits. These are the tools you have to complete your main objective, which is to get through the levels. This allows you to proceed, but to truly beat a level you have to collect all the chicks as well.

As a game, Cluckles is pretty basic – but therein lies its charm. The level design is for the most part on point – entertaining enough paths to the level exit, often full of secret areas that reward exploration, and rarely more than a minute or two long so having to return to the start of the level when you die is not a major issue. Your move set might seem rather limited for a game released in 2017, but “how do I get past this bit?” becomes a very different question when the answer lies in one of the few options available to you right from the start. I’ve found that most games that don’t aim for realism in their art style age pretty well, and the graphics in Cluckles are pixel art, designed to resemble an old 8-bit game. This is deliberately designed to replicate an art style that didn’t age well, but Cluckles is a fine example of it’s use, and will certainly look no worse in five years! The sound has the old-style chip-tune bloops and whistles as well, and while the sound track isn’t particularly memorable, it does the job.

Presumably this screenshot is from the mobile port...

The game is a joy to play. The controls are tight and responsive, (I used the Steam controller for my play through because I didn’t want to brutalise my laptop keys with a platform game!) it’s genuinely challenging in places, and the levels are a lot of fun to beat. It’s simple enough that almost anybody can pick it up and have a go, and there are no adult-level themes that would restrict its audience. It’s probably the best game I own for being able to pick it up and have a bit of a play: There’s no contrived game system to learn, no levelling up or extra abilities, no incompetently-coded difficulty spikes, no overly elaborate plot, no belligerent multiplayer communities. It’s just you, a chicken and a sword, for however long you want to play it – and you’ll have a great time doing it.

Cluckles falters only slightly in the somewhat anticlimactic end game. Apart from the fact that the last few levels are slightly longer, there isn’t much differentiation between what you’re doing at the start of the game and what you’re doing at the end. This isn’t much of an issue; if anything it adds to the game’s pick-up-and-play mentality as you can easily come back to it after months and be none the worse for it. But there are no boss battles to speak of, no extra challenge apart from what the level presents, and there’s very little in-game reward for beating the game. None of this detracts from what is overall a very well-designed game – but people who are fans of the old-school platformers that it’s clearly trying to replicate may be expecting a little bit more.

Cluckles’ Adventure manages to present the core experience of video games without augmenting it. It throws out the bathwater, keeps the baby, and while not everybody will see it through to the end, it’s worth a look – you’ll enjoy whatever time you put in to it.

Final Score: 4/5. Great game.

Backlog Beatdown: Handling my Fate with Hand of Fate

I bought Hand of Fate in the summer of 2016. I remembered watching TotalBiscuit’s impression of it the previous year wishing I had a computer powerful enough to play it, then jumped at the opportunity to play it when I bought one. This was probably the reason I bought a Steam Controller as well; I knew a lot of it was an Arkham-like brawler and I didn’t fancy doing that on a laptop keyboard!

This is the best you see of either character.

Hand of Fate is a procedurally-generated Deck Builder/Brawler/Role Playing Game. You are an unnamed adventurer, across the table from The Dealer; a mysterious being of considerable power. The Dealer has a deck of cards that take you through various encounters; these purport to be memories from your adventures. These cards are laid out in a simple shape, some large and some small, some linear and some more open. You move your character onto the cards one at a time and resolve the encounters on there. Sometimes this is a decision, sometimes it’s a game of chance, and a lot of times they’re combat encounters with a variety of monsters. You have to make your way through these encounters, through various ‘levels’ of the dungeon created by the deck, manage your resources along the way and beat the boss at the end of the adventure. You’re supported along the way by equipment cards, and you can manipulate what occurs by building up the equipment and encounter deck at the start of the game. Each run takes between ten minutes and half an hour, promoting a “Just one more go!” mentality.

The combat - simple, but short and functional.

Hand of Fate appears to be a jumbled mess of ideas that shouldn’t work in a game, but it really does. The game is beautifully presented; the graphics are nothing special for the time but the theme and the atmosphere create a fantastic and slightly unnerving experience. The Dealer, in particular, is wonderful character: Primarily an antagonist with a distinct aura of menace about him, but almost friendly in nature; not above congratulating you for a victory, apologising for a harsh card, or laughing at you for a mistake. That you can only see his eyes means his countenance never gives too much away, and Anthony Skordi’s brilliant voice acting brings as much to the character as it needs to – clearly invested in what he’s doing, but no overblown dramatics. The deckbuilding is well-implemented; you can either build the decks yourself or allow the computer to do it for you. This allows for micro-managing and optimisation for those who want to, and rewards you with more cards and items if you do, but doesn’t distract from the game for those who just want to play it. Some questions have been raised about the combat system but the only major flaw for me was that I wasn’t able to control the camera, meaning that I didn’t know what was going on in some situations. Everything else is fine; it’s basic, but you’re rarely in combat for more than a few minutes at a time so it doesn’t outstay its welcome. If anything, it adds to the general effect of not quite being in control of the situation!

If you play pen-and-paper RPGs and have ever wondered
what "True Neutral" looks like, I think The Dealer is it!

Finally, one of the game’s greatest strengths is in its plot. On the surface, there doesn’t appear to be one. You don’t know who the adventurer is, or who the Dealer’s true identity, or the purpose of the game. Without wishing to spoil, the ending, while spectacular, doesn’t address any of this. But this is fine; it allows you to fill in the gaps for yourself, and you can never be so invested in a plot that isn’t there that you feel the need to restart every time you come back to the game after a time, which is usually the reason I rarely see RPGs through to the end. And I’ll happily come back for more later; some additional difficulty levels were patched in post-launch, there’s downloadable content which implies different classes, and a sequel was released not long ago.

Hand of Fate is a game that delivers exactly what I needed when I needed it. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time, and I’m looking forward to returning to it soon!