At first glance, Default Dan is just another platformer – but dive any deeper into it, and you will quickly find that it is a very original title. If you have ever played Super Mario Brothers or any other standard platformer, you will find your die hard habits working against you. All of the shiny golden coins, delicious looking cupcakes, and generally positive objects, will result in your character blowing up. Spikes help the player jump higher and enemies act as platforms. It reverses the typical role of most in-game aspects, and as a result creates an interesting, challenging game.
I played through the entire demo, and I am not over-exaggerating when I say it becomes a very difficult, and at times, very infuriating game. There are many signs with funny comments and suggestions throughout the game that help to balance this out. But I still felt that in certain parts it was unintentionally hard, specifically during the boss fight, which was one of my main problems with the game.
The boss fight seemed to be too hard to be fun, and lacking in humor of any kind. Although I did beat it, I don’t think the joy of beating it warranted its difficulty. Difficulty options easily remedy this, but the game has other problems. I also found that the graphics were outdated, and that the music looped too many times. Other than the lack in the amount of music, I found it to be pleasing to the ears. They’ve also hired the artist Brent Black to do the music for the game since the demo was released, so things are looking promising. In the end, my problems with the game could easily be fixed by the time the game is officially released, and the gameplay itself was already enjoyable.
Overall, the game has lots of potential, and because it was successfully Kickstarted, it will probably end up being a very good game by release. The group of enthusiastic developers and artists from Atlanta, GA hope for the game to come out sometime in 2014.
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