[Review] Is Monumental Failure … A Monumental Failure?
Review Key was provided by developer.
Singleplayer, Couch-Mutliplayer
Developer: Scary Wizard
Steam Page
Price: 9.99
Monumental Failure is a historically (in)accurate physics-based monument construction simulator.
That´s how it describes itself on its steam page and well, It´s a damn fine one.
Concept
In Monumental Failure you can build 6 ancient monuments like Stonehenge or the Colosseum. Each Monument is considered as a world and consists of 10 little “levels” which will take up to 1-2 min each. In each of these levels you have to get 1 stone or piece of the monument at his place. And observe how your little monument is growing and growing until you can admire your Monument(al Failure)!
Yes I suck at these games
And depending on your accuracy you get points from the “gods” which give you up to 3 stars, to unlock the other monuments.
Gameplay
Depending on the level, you get the control over 4 guys, which you control in pair of 2 over WASD and the arrow keys or the two joysticks on your controller. If you play it with more people in local Coop each player gets the control over 1-2 persons, while in versus Multiplayer everyone gets to control his own pair of 4 over splitscreen.
Now your task is to push 1 piece on its proper position, depending on the monument that can be a simple stone or a part of a bridge etc.
In a “normal” scenario you can push these parts of the monuments in a certain direction by letting your guys run against them. And that´s basically the concept, control your guys and push the stones in the right place!
The Basic concept
But that would be repetitive after a while, right? That would be boring after a while, right? Wouldn´t be that much fun after a while, right?
Well that´s when the best part of Monumental Failure kicks in:
It´s variation and creativity
Each monument isn´t just different because it´s a different monument, each of these “worlds” has it´s own unique concepts and playstyles!
Let´s take the first monument Stonehenge as an example for that really good design:
Every level starts “normal”, just push the stone into it´s right place, later on you may have to do this while your guys are standing on balls for example, so there´s some variation too.
Then you get to practice it for some levels with increasing difficulty, like walking on thin plankets without falling down.
If you practiced it enough and became familiar with the mechanic a completly new one gets introduced, like jetpacks! Ye, right, jetpacks! Historically (in)accurate right? Good luck bringing your stone on it´s place with them. Especially because the game´s objects are all physic based so your stone will resist with everything it got!
Jetpacks! Hell Yeah!
But don´t think that´s all, each monument normally has 3 unique mechanics and 1 evolution of the “basic” gameplay. So, how about a slide for your object so it can slide away from you? Sounds awesome right?
Slides … what should I say more?
And the best thing: It often combines them in later levels of the monument for an absolute mess! Better prepare for some misplaced stones!
And every monument offers these unqiue things, nothing´s reptitive, every world is different and this is something I really like and that´s very important for such a game!
Play-Modes and Replayability
Monumental Failure offers you three different ways to play your games.
The only negative point about the moument and levels is that you´re forced to play each monument on a row, so you can´t select the different levels only one of the 6 monuments which can be quite annoying if you just failed in one level and can´t get the 3rd star, so you have to replay the whole thing.
Singleplayer
Well, it´s pretty obvious, you control all the guys by yourself and play the levels. I wouldn´t recommend to buy this game if you can only play the Singleplayer since it´s clearly made for Couch-Multiplayer and makes a ton more fun.
Couch-Versus
Mode for up to 4 players, everyone gets their own set of guys, own part of screen and own monument to build. The player with the highest points wins! Easy right? Pretty fun too!
Couch-Coop
Every player controls 1-2 guys, depending on player and persons count, and you build your monument together! Due to the time limit it can get pretty intense, when you don´t cooperate fast.
Best mode in my opinion!
Wanna read more about level design etc. for a good Couch-Coop game? Take a look at this:
What is good game design for … A Couch-Coop game?
But keep in mind that a complete run through all the levels will only take up 1-2 hours, so it´s not a game for a long night but certainly something quick!
Graphics/Artstyle
Well, what can I say … Monumental Failure isn´t one of the prettiest games but it has its own artstyle, it knows how it wanna look.
Personally, I like this very geometric artstyle because it added some unique look to it, it reduces the things to their minimum by just giving you forms and that´s what I really like, well I always like simplicity.
And did I say I really love the artworks for the gods? They just look cute, dumb or both sometimes and that makes them so adorable. In my opinion that´s perfect for such a lighthearted game and also gives it a unique art feature. Due to the amount of gods per world you also get an additional amount of variety, so you don´t always look at the same god at the point ranking.
Art of Venus
During my playtime I only encountered one bug, well I had to restart the game because of it, but for a game made by only 2 people that´s pretty good and with some additional polish and feedback I´m sure that will be fixed in no time.
Conclusion
So, I think it´s pretty clear that I really like Monumental Failure as a Couch-Multiplayer game, it does a lot right and only has some minor flaws, but hey, nothing´s perfect, especially if you consider that it´s mainly made by two people.
Monumental Failure offers an unique idea mixed with an excessive amount of variation and creativity in level design. Combined with it´s adorable artstyle it´s an amazing little Couch-Multiplayer game!
If you like this genre, do yourself a favour and try it out! It´s definetly not a Monumental Failure at all!
And now let´s show you guys some of my Monumental Failures:
Wanna give your opinion about the game? Wanna give feedback?
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