Developer: Fabio Ferrara
Publisher: Chubby Pixel
Platforms: PC, Switch
Tested on: Switch
Suicide Guy: Sleepin’ Deeply – Review
With a bit of a sensitive name, Suicide Guy might give you all different types of associations over what the hell this game might actually be! Especially if you don’t know the first game, but the title is actually pretty self-explanatory. The goal? Finding a way to off yourself in a cartoony world. For some people, this might have been a kick against a sore leg, and that’s why Suicide Guy: Sleepin’ Deeply is at the very least already an ethical improvement. Everybody knows the fastest way to wake up from a dream is by imminent death, right?
Story
There’s only one bit of story that’s clearly explained in Suicide Guy’s latest adventure. After seeing a commercial about a beer that has 99 percent alcohol in it, Suicide Guy gets thirsty and takes one of those out of his fridge. As he drinks it he quickly passes out and wakes up at sea. From here, you will instantly be dropped inside what seems a colorful, almost kiddy nightmare. When there’s another cutscene at any time, it will mostly be there because it’s giving you a hint to direct you further towards your goal of ending your life (and your dream as well). Each time you finish a world, you return to a mysterious restaurant that serves as a level selector where you get ready for another adventure. Except for the goal remaining the same each time you play a level, the worlds you will find yourself in have nothing to connect them with each other, which actually is great in this case! It’s a type of set-up that you normally find in older games. Less story, more gameplay and focus on creating individual nice parts. This doesn’t always work for every game, but for Suicide Guy it does wonders.
Graphics
Suicide Guy is on the edge of a cartoony experience, where a lot of bright colors are mixed with sometimes serious looking omens. What’s mainly wonderful about the art direction is that every new world is a great new explorable box of its own. It’s doing such a fine job on letting the fantasy flow free while still making puzzles understandable and giving the player room to move around. It’s just bright in communicating what you can do most of the time. Maybe very occasionally you’d wish that there would be a clearer hint on what to do, but it’s also the fun and part of some difficulty the game brings.
Sound
Most of the levels will actually be eerily silent, apart from the sound effects and the game’s weird obsession with portable radios that do give some music at times. Luckily, the sound effects that are there, are there to be good. The creaking of the platforms you jump on, the low voice of Suicide Guy when he jumps around, the rain and storm and devices you come across, all are nicely blended in with the gameplay and certainly give the game that extra boost of realism in an otherwise cartoony world.
Gameplay
Suicide Guy: Sleepin’ Deeply could be best described as a first-person puzzle game with platform elements. The goal is always the same and very simple, you need to find a way to die. The methods towards the goal depend on the world that’s presented to you though. Variation and creativity is what the game does best. One world you might need a very linear approach and just try to conquer it bit by bit to get further ahead in different rooms, while the other world might be a timed event where you need to complete a track of obstacles as fast as possible as if you were in an episode of wipe-out.
As an example, the game drops you instantly into a level where you are trying to find a way to die with nothing but a giant catapult, a rock, and a giant green monster. To complete your objective you will need to find the right sequence of doing things. If you’re not busy running and jumping around, you will probably be working out the order of puzzles in a world, a puzzle itself, or actually looking for the end-goal. Sometimes it’s not that clear where you will find the best (and only) option to end the level until you get further on the road to ”freedom”.
The biggest problem with the game is that, even though it relies on platforming gameplay a lot, the controls and mechanics can be a frustrating combination. Sometimes you will quickly jump too far or slide off a specific platform, even if it’s clearly unintended. A good challenging game is always fair, and never gives the player that feeling of something being the game’s fault. Instead, it will challenge the player to become better and stronger using the given mechanics and opportunities. Be that as it may though, at any rate, Suicide Guy: Sleepin’ Deeply is great for its nostalgic value of creation and challenging your mind without saying too much. Its not too funny, which considering the sensitive subject is probably better for the creators when taking in account that the internet isn’t really friendly these days.
Conclusion
Fun, challenging, and above all a great and original puzzle game. The controls might take away some of the pleasure, yet the nostalgia and the creativity this game is drenched in, are two things that other games can look up to and take an example from. If you are looking for a game that’s low in its price ($5,99/€5,99) and gives you a good few hours of fun, it’s definitely nice to try out.
Suicide Guy: Sleepin’ Deeply - Review,
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