Developer: Bubble Studios
Publisher: Bubble Studios
Platforms: PC, Switch
Tested on: Switch
Skelittle: A Giant Party!! – Review
Party- and board games have always been a fun way to pass the time with a group of friends. In the virtual world, there has been one series that have stood the test of time and that is Mario Party. Thanks to its success, there always are others that try to board the hype-train and will make a game that looks like the original IP. Skelittle takes the party aspect down to solely playing mini-games and while that isn’t a bad thing, it is the way how it is brought that is extremely bad.
Story
Party games sometimes have a little background, but some do manage to tell a story. Nonetheless, more than often we find that there is no story in games such as this. In Skelittle this remains the same, as the game itself has no real background. Only the four characters have a tiny portion of background information about their personality. The absence of the story isn’t too bad, as you will be annoyed by many other things in this game.
Graphics
Nostalgia is something that scores greatly these last years, by emulating old graphics like the first 3D games or even creating them in the same software like twenty years ago. Now the graphics of Skelittle don’t remind people of the old CGI clips, nor the polygon days, but rather of the cheap and crappy freeware titles that were distributed in the early 2000s. Depending on where you live, you might have found some free PC games in cereal brands such as Kellogg’s and toy brands that were proud to present you with said free games to win over a younger audience. To be honest, those games even looked better. In Skelittle there is zero attention to detail, water is just a plain, non-transparent texture, and the overall graphics are very simple which makes the experience just ugly as a whole. All the characters look like they come from some strange anime but the outfits are at least slightly cool. Animations are also pretty bland, characters move like they are made out of Lego and items interact in a pretty basic way.
Sound
The only little enjoyable thing is the music of the game. Yet the approach to music in Skelittle feels bad and cheesy. In order to put more pressure on players, some developers choose to speed up the music in games. Most of the time this is done in a way where the BPM is stable, yet in Skelittle it is more like turning up the speed on your turntable. Audio effects are pretty basic and seem like they come out of cheap free-to-play kids games.
Gameplay
Skelittle: A Giant Party is a collection of mini-games where up to four players can battle it out to come out on top. The game starts with the player(s) selecting a character and each character has a little background story to them that just tells them who they are. From their personality, you can assume that all four of them are just kids and they want to have fun. Next, you get dropped into the stash, which is a large sandbox, where you can put items that you win while playing in the party mode. The stash allows for the placement of different intractable items and each one needs to be unlocked while playing the party mode. This place also doubles as the main menu, since you cannot really go back after initializing the game. Those who like progression will find some fulfillment in unlocking all the items for the stash. These items are partly cosmetic and some can be interacted with, such as a ball and goal to play some soccer for example. You must follow the tutorial in the beginning before being able to do something. The latter explains how everything works and now you can finally go to the big party.
Here you can decide between seven, fifteen, 30 minutes of playtime and the custom mode. In the custom mode, you can decide what games to play, while in the timed modes there are a few games that get randomly selected. In total there are fifteen mini-games to play and while a few take inspirations from popular games such as Bomber Man’s or Mario Party’s mini-games, most are thought up by the developers. Most games are really boring and are just not enjoyable to be played more than twice. This is because seven of the fifteen games are about dodging certain objects, two are about teamwork and the others are just overly simplified events. Combine this with the bad controls and therefore you won’t really like to play certain mini-games again. After selecting the match length, you decide if you want to add in computer-controlled opponents to join the party. The A.I has no difficulty adjustment and can be brutally strong at some points.
Another weak point about Skelittle is, while the game is such low quality overall, the loading times are very long, between each menu and each game there is a pretty long wait. The graphics aren’t that great, the sound isn’t really too explicit and the animations aren’t detailed, making it odd that the game has to load this many items and assets. Controlling the game doesn’t fare well, although there are only a few button inputs needed, it is how the characters respond to it that makes the experience feel bad. Some mini-games are decently playable but others are laughably bad. Sometimes the game doesn’t register your commands in time, making the whole gameplay factor a chore, rather than a fun experience.
Conclusion
Skelittle: A Giant Party!! is a giant pile of crap. The game lacks in quality overall, as the sound design is bland, the controls are horrid and the graphics are simply a big letdown. Only fifteen mini-games are included and when you have played each game twice or so, you will not enjoy them anymore. Collecting items for your stash might be fun but don’t really add any value to gameplay. It might pose a challenge to unlock everything, but as the base gameplay is so boring, you will probably enjoy banging your head into a wall more than playing this game.
Skelittle: A Giant Party!! – Review,
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