Fans of hardcore platformers like Super Meat Boy and VVVVV will appreciate the indie platformer Love+ from developer Fred Wood. For a mere $2 players take home a simple, but devious experience that visually harkens back to the days of the Atari 2600, but retains the tight controls of modern platformers.
Players traverse the 11 levels in three different modes. Easy grants infinite lives but severely reduces your score. Normal grants 100 lives to take on the 11 standard challenges. And hard mode lets you play with only one life.
There are only 3 functions in the game, run, jump, and what is a rather interesting new idea for the platformer genre, planting a respawn point on any flat surface for when you fall or get maimed by one of the game’s obstacles.
The levels themselves are nicely varied but the difficulty doesn’t truly start to escalate until the final third of the game. But the final few missions are some doozies. When it’s all said and done, Love+ is less about getting from point A to B and it is more about getting to point B as quickly as possible in the fewest amount of lives to score the most points. And of course you have leaderboards to compete with.
Some players may be turned off by the lack of powerups, and we wished there were a few more obstacles or enemies to avoid. But that, of course, can be remedied by playing user-created maps or by generating your own with the game’s super simple map editor. Sadly, there is no set database where you can download games from the community yet. The developer included 10 custom maps with Love+ which are, by and large, much more of a challenge and more fun than the 11 that are considered part of the core game.
The music by James Bennett ranges nicely from retro kickback chiptunes to contemporary hip hop flair. The music is definitely a high point for the game. There are 12 tracks total to his soundtrack, and if you’re not careful, a few may get stuck in your head. The $2 spent on Love+ is split 50/50 between Wood and Bennett.
This only a little review, but Love+ is a little game. Love+ doesn’t try to break any molds, nor does it try to raise the bar higher for the genre, but it delivers what it promises. It’s a solid platformer with a great pricetag cool retro level and art style, great controls and a sweet soundtrack. But we wish there were a few more levels with some moving obstacles build into the native game.
With a demo available on their main site at http://trunksandsoto.com/love/ it definitely get’s a worth trying from us. But for only $2, we can also say it’s worth buying if you’re a fan of hardcore platformers.
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- Name: Love +
- Available on: PC
- Developed by: Fred Wood
- Published by: Fred Wood
- Release Date: Q4 2012
- Price: $1.99
- Elder-Geek Score: 4 out of 5 / Worth Trying and Buying