They Bleed Pixels - The Hardcore Casual Platformer

I was recently playing "They Bleed Pixels" which at the first glance is just another 2D hardcore platformer like "Super Meat Boy". However after some time I noticed that the execution is very different.

Super Meat Boy has the big problem that the length of the levels increases by a lot as you go on which can lead to a lot of frustration. One of the big reasons Super Meat Boy works and is so successful is that the reset time and repeat time is very short. Any time you die you are immediately back to the start. If you are stuck at a specific part of the level you don't need a long time to get back to it. These two things are the major differences between old school platformers and new school. Old school fights the players while new school wants the player to succeed.

But back to They Bleed Pixels. The game has similar mechanics as Super Meat Boy but the levels are much, much longer. However, if you fill an energy bar and stand still for a few seconds when nothing is around you, you create a save point. Your energy fills either by combat or by pickups. But this save point is a full fledged save. You can quit the game and can get back to the same save point.

This mechanic leads to a very short repeat time and makes your play very much checkpoint based. Anytime you get over your current hurdle in the level, you are very close to a good save point. Coupled with the fact that you can just quit the game after this probably frustrating few minutes. The developers combined this with giving you some simple combat rooms after you beat a hard part of the level. It really feels like a more casual "hardcore platformer".

The only question left to ponder is how hardcore you can push this concept. This game blocks the save point at some points but never strays far away from its core concept. The sections as far as I played (the start of chapter 4) are short while still being difficult.

It seems to deny the general mode of increasing the difficulty by just increasing the level size and instead focuses on pure execution. Can you make an interesting difficulty curve just by this? Can you make a save anywhere platformer?

Sadly, the game has some flaws. The combat controls are all mapped to one button modified with directional input. This is honestly atrocious and the I can't understand the reason behind this. But if you can live with these flaws you are given a nice platformer. More and more I see myself starting it after a long gaming session to just get to the next checkpoint.

[1] "They Bleed Pixels" on http://www.theybleedpixels.com/ (Logo)