It’s been a while since I checked out a demo but just recently this one came out… Hell of an Office. It’s a demo available on Steam right now where you have to make it through Hell after your elevator crashed onto the -666 floor… Hell yeah!
Developer: 43 Studios Publisher: 43 Studios Genre: 3D Platformer, Action, Parkour, FPS, Indie Release Date: SOON™ Reviewed on: PC Available on: PC Demo is available on Steam for free.
You’ll have to jump, dash, and shoot your way through the hellscape and the game is quite fun. It always feels like you’re just *this* close to beating it. Moving is relatively simple. Using the left trigger you can dash forward once whenever you touch the ground, the right trigger can be used to bomb yourself upwards and then you have the standard controls to top it off… but Hell of an Office is fast-paced and gives you a speedrun timer as well as collectables and allows you to choose your own path. It may give you tips and hints as to where to go in the form of signs but most of the time, you can skip platforms if you land on certain spots and it’s honestly quite cool how much you could potentially optimise. I’d describe this as a speedrunner’s wet dream… but with lava.
Speaking of the lava, it is rising. Platforms vanish. You die. You don’t want to get fired from your office job, so don’t try hard… try harder! The floor is lava and there are plenty of ways of screwing yourself over like dashing when a jump would have sufficed or getting stuck underneath a platform because you mistimed your jump, etc. But despite me sucking at platformers, I actually really enjoyed this one… It’s hilarious and requires a lot of skill but it didn’t feel frustrating really.
The demo features similar music throughout the levels but it really reminded me of Kill It With Fire… which was a good time, too. The art style kind of reminded me of The Stanley Parable in a way but with fire and lava and a lot of ruins and an “Eye of Sauron” looking goal to reach…The best part though is the fun-paced and responsive platforming… Honestly, I loved the mechanics that got introduced from walls that have to be shot, platforms that vanish once you step on them and ways to propel yourself upwards when using your fiery stapler. There are also other worlds that introduce new mechanics like portals, wind tunnels. It’s quite satisfying and I’m looking forward to the full release.
What I would have loved is accessibility options or ways to skip levels in the full release. Not everyone is a god gamer… and certainly not I. I would have liked to see stuff like being able to add an extra dash or making the lava slower so that you have an easier time if your reaction speed isn’t fast enough or if you’re just not good at games. I feel like making games fun for every sort of player would be nice and hence an “easy mode” of sorts in this game would be quite cool… Maybe the lava goes slowly or doesn’t rise at all and you can take your time and practice. A practice mode would probably be also good…
But for everyone that likes parkour-ish games or 3D platformers, I’m sure you’re gonna love this game. Make sure to wishlist the full release on Steam and download the demo! It’s really good and offers a lot of levels, actually!
Cheers!
This post was first published on Indiecator by Dan Indiecator aka MagiWasTaken. If you like what you see here and want to see more, you can check me out on Twitch and YouTube as well.
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A goal indicator and level preview would go a long way on this game. Also a rapid fall button, most your time was lost falling after “jumping” from platform to platform. Not a game for me, but what you mention above and these suggestions would make the game a lot better.
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Yeah some players had some issues orientating through the level because you have to move the camera a lot and do fast turns. We will work on that.
We don’t like the rapid fall button because losing time when falling is an essential part of the game, if you always spam rocket jump and gain to much height, maybe you should use the dash instead to move horizontally and not vertically. Adding a rapid fall button would convert this game in a rocket jump->rapid fall spam. The fun in this game is knowing when to rocket and when to dash, not always rocket. Thank you so much for the feedback! Hope our explanation was clear enough :D
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I believe, the rapid fall button is referring to when you don’t make a jump and you’re falling down and you know that you’re dead but the game keeps going for a few more seconds. And I agree that a feature like that or a fast-reset would be lovely to have, especially as it would make it less frustrating at times, although I personally didn’t mind it all that much. As for the goal indicator, I can understand people wanting something like that but I personally didn’t mind it. A fast-reset button or a rapid-fall button for when you know you’re dead would be good.
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It wasn’t, but a quick reset would be a great idea too. For a game about speed, there’s no reason not to have one.
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Actually if you press R you quick reset the level haha we already have that
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Ah, Magi never used it so I had no idea. Well that’s good :)
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I was never told that it’s a thing. :)
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Maybe we should say it in some kind of tutorial? We analysed other games like Clustertruck and they never tell you which key is the quickreset, we supposed it was a standard that R is the one haha sorry
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Sounds great! :) Love the initiative btw!
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Thank you so much for playing our game! All the information we get is really valuable to learn what we are doing okey and what we should improve and explain better!
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Yeah, I didn’t remember the game telling you that at any point. It feels like it should tell you the first time you die like 2-3 times on a level and then not again.
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That makes sense. I wasn’t sure if Magi could even dash downward. I remember suggesting it to him but as long as a mobility option like that exists in some capacity, even if it’s very limited, that serves the intended purpose I am suggesting here since you have to rocket jump on a lot of the jumps, so it’s very punishing to the player to have zero options always to descend faster. Hope that makes some sense, the dash is perfect if it does that :)
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Well you can’t dash downward, but even if a lot of jumps seem like you should rocket jump you really don’t have to, you have dash and normal jump aswell but people tend to forget about them and rocket jump 99% of the time even if it’s the worse option XD we should work on making it more clear when to use one mechanic or the other, but we wanted the player to figure it out by repeating the level.
Thanks a lot for the feedback again!
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“Speaking of the lava, it is rising”.
LILITH???????!!!
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