A Gummy’s Life – Preview
After watching the animation movie Sausage Party, in which all groceries in the supermarket come to life and lead their own life including parties and religion, we thought we had seen everything, and then walks in A Gummy’s Life. The candy shop might be that place of eternal happiness we all think it is, but in this case, it’s the host of the most brutal battlefield in the history of candy.
A Gummy’s Life is a party game you can play with up to sixteen friends and is guaranteed to make everyone laugh. The setup of the game is easy: the last gummy left standing wins, so you have to make sure not to fall or get thrown off the map by other players, as that is quite easily done. Upon starting the game, all contenders will get to choose out of a wide array of available gummies, and all gummies have a set of different skins for the player to choose from. When everyone is happy, you move on to the map selection screen. At this time there are ten maps of which you can select several to be played in succession. Points are awarded after every completed map and the final score will determine the winner and runner ups. Each map has different mechanics but most have a certain sudden death mechanic to make sure the map ends and games cannot be dragged out indefinitely. For example on the clock map, the playing area is basically a white circle with black numbers and the pointers, and at some point in time the white area will drop down, leaving just the numbers and pointers. Other mechanics include rotating cannons, player operated trap doors, centrifugal powers and AI controlled gummies whose sole purpose is to throw you off. With that being said there isn’t much story to the game, and although it’s still being developed we’re going to assume that the story will be of the diet and light variety. Visually the game looks nice already, very stylized and colorful. One of the levels is clearly based on Minecraft but in general all maps are made out of block shapes except maybe the giant Jell-O pudding.
The Gummies have mostly traditional shapes like a bear, a banana, a bottle, but also more nontraditional ones like a shark. It gets a little hectic when more people join the game but thanks to the large variety of models and skins you can most of the time distinguish your character. The camera does a decent job of bringing all characters in the picture by zooming in and out depending on how far characters are away from each other. Controlling your gummy happens by either keyboard or controller. At this time you cannot customize the controls so people with an azerty keyboard should opt for a controller instead as it’s critical to be able to control which way your character is going at all times or your opponents will have an easy ride. Besides walking, your gummy has a few options to knock and push your opponents off the map. You can grab onto another gummy in an attempt to drag him to an edge or attempt to pick him up and throw him into the abyss. You can also use your head, and head-butt them, maybe even knocking them unconscious so you have a small window in which they cannot fight back. A final move in your arsenal is sliding your belly which can be used defensively to get away or offensively to knock someone else over.
Sound and music is a rather underdeveloped aspect at this time or did not always work properly. The main sound you will be hearing is a slapping sound when two or more gummies are running into each other and frantically hit, slap, grab and head-butt each other.
Conclusion
A Gummy’s Life is a work in progress but in its current state it’s playable and highly amusing. The more people that join, the more hectic it becomes and it can turn into an all-out button mashing and screaming at the screen experience but nonetheless a funny experience. We’ll sure keep an eye on the candy and hope to see you in the candy store sometime soon.
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