Developer: Cross-Product
Publisher: Cross-Product
Platform: PC, Mac
Tested on: PC
Airscape: The Fall of Gravity – Review
First introduced as a HTML5 game, Airscape: The Fall of Gravity is now a full blown, bigger and better sequel. It’s a fast-paced gravity based action platformer that will test your skill and patience. It has over 60 levels, hardcore difficulty, five playable characters and oh, you play as an octopus.
Story
You are a Dumbo Octopus, kidnapped by a mechanical alien race. Some of your friends have also been captured and your mission is to free all of them and escape the aliens. On the way, you can also free some of your critter friends who will be eternally grateful!
That’s pretty much all there is to it. Airscape: The Fall of Gravity features a very simple story and isn’t really bothered with full blown cutscenes or story explanations. Since it’s an indie platformer, it doesn’t really bother that it doesn’t try to bring a story, it just shoots you straight into action.
Graphics
Much like with the story, graphics are pretty simple. Everything looks really clean and isn’t unnecessarily fancy. The octopi you can play as also look really cute, which is an added bonus. Most of the levels look nice and orderly and have very nice backgrounds to them. There are also different zones, each having their own theme.
Performance wise, Airscape: The Fall of Gravity runs extremely well. It easily runs at a constant 60 fps and doesn’t seem to drop (a lot). The only thing that is pretty weird is the resolution setting. It doesn’t seem to feature all of the resolutions your screen might handle, but there is an Auto option, which doesn’t really say what resolution it runs at. It also has an “Auto Adjust Res” function that lowers your resolution on the fly if you experience too much lag, which is a pretty weird(?) option.
Sound
The music in this game is surprisingly good and fun. It’s very lively and makes you feel like a very brave and adventurous little octopus. Apparently it’s an orchestral soundtrack, so fans of that receive an extra bonus on top of the game. Sound effects are also pretty fun and there’s plenty of them, which always makes for a better experience.
Gameplay
Which brings us to the most important part of a game, the gameplay. As mentioned before, Airscape: The Fall of Gravity is a hardcore action platformer that’s easy at first, but gets hard and frustrating very quickly. You’ll have to use caution, speed and reflexes all together in order to make it to the end of a level. The controls are pretty simple, you have movement, jump and a special action which is different for every octopus. It also features complete controller support, which is always nice for a platformer.
What makes this game different from a lot of other ones is that it completely revolves around playing with gravity. The gravity pulls you towards terrain that you can run on and it makes later levels extremely creative with how you have to go about them. Your screen also tilts with you in order to maintain navigation, but if you get dizzy quickly or want it to be more responsive you can change it easily at the press of a button.
The game features five octopi for you to play, each one having its own unique feature. One can run, another one can make a slower landing by flapping its tentacles around, another one can teleport a short distance and so on. Most levels can be completed with whatever one you prefer, but sometimes you’re better off using a specific one because it can save you a lot of frustration.
Airscape features a level system in order to get further in the game. In every level, you can collect a couple of critters which are sort of collectibles, but also unlock new levels for you to play. You can complete a level by getting to the teleporter at the end of it. Most of the unlockable levels are stages where you have to rescue one of your friends, giving you access to play with them after you do so. All levels belong to a specific zone and every zone has its own theme and new element it introduces into the game, which is a nice way to gradually roll you into the harder parts of the game.
As said, the levels get gradually harder and harder. The first few levels seem like a piece of cake but soon enough you get to levels that bring more frustration than fun. A game can be challenging and fun at the same time but some levels were just plain frustrating, especially when a timer appears to collect one of the critters and you have to rush to the end of the stage and then go back for the critters you’ve missed. Of course there’s checkpoints you can use but it still doesn’t help the fact that some levels make you hate the game at times. It also seems you can get snagged quite easily on a lot of things like rocks or edges of platforms, which doesn’t really help when you’re trying to play fast. However, if you like hard games and want to take it to the next level, you can put on the speedrun timer and have a go.
Conclusion
All in all, Airscape: The Fall of Gravity is a fun platformer to play if you’re into really hard games. It starts off cute and fun but soon enough you’ll find yourself resetting the level 100 times just because it requires you to move like a rocket. Sometimes, it can really kill the fun of the game and just make you mad, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but more accessible and easy levels for everyone could open up a bigger public (maybe even Steam workshop levels one day?).
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