You Think You Know Platformers? Think Again.
You sometimes don’t realize how much of game design is centered around expectations until they get messed with. For those of a certain age, there’s nothing more expected than the basics of how a 2D platformer and its level design work. Level Devil knows this, and it’s happy to give you and your expectations a giant middle finger with each and every level.
That might sound like a recipe for frustration, but instead my time with the game has been nothing if not consistently hilarious and delightful. Despite being someone who often finds the potential for lost progress in souls-likes to be off-putting, failing a level in Level Devil and incurring a similar level of setback elicits a hearty chuckle from me rather than an exasperated sigh.
Levels Designed to Mess with You
Level Devil is a game that is deliberately trying to mess with you, and it’s going to succeed more often than not. The creativity of the ways in which it does so makes for a consistent joy throughout–it’s nothing if not spiteful.
Levels are divided into groups of five stages, each with some kind of theme. Each of these stages is fairly short, and you can typically see what you expect to be your main obstacle: a pit you’ll fall down, some spikes that you might land on. The name of the theme–guess how the “Flappy” levels play out–might give you some sense for what to expect, but even then, that’s just when the “Devil” part of the name comes into play.
For instance, in one stage, you start in a room on the left side, and the exit is on the right. You jump over a simple gap in the middle, perhaps expecting something to go wrong. Nothing does, so you advance toward the exit. Suddenly, a large barrier emerges, blocking your path and standing too tall to jump over. You’re granted the briefest of moments to recognize there is no path to the exit, only for the barrier to zoom at you, knocking you down the gap and killing you. Rather than be annoying, this–like virtually every other attempt by the game to kill you–elicited a loud laugh from me.
A game built around this absolutely sounds frustrating on paper, but each stage is so short that you’re never at risk of losing much progress, and the ways it messes with you are just so blunt that it’s hard not to find it funny. So much of the joy I’ve had playing Level Devil is simply in seeing what kind of creative new way it’s come up with to end my life, or what kind of gimmick awaits next. It cleverly builds up anticipation for what is coming; you’ll quickly learn to stop approaching any given hazard with the kind of straightforward approach you would in a Mario game. That might occasionally work out in your favor, but more often than not, I found the game was prepared to react to those attempts to navigate the level in a more unconventional way–you can practically hear it tsking at you and saying, “Not so fast.” Not since Super Rude Bear Resurrection have I played a platformer so delighted by killing me.
An Unpredictable and Hilarious Experience
There are many levels where there’s no way to be prepared for what’s to come, and failure is inevitable. Whereas that’s a trait that I dislike in platformers, by leaning into it so heavily here, it instead makes for one of my favorite experiences with the genre in years. Part of that is due to the fact that I would consider this as much or more so a comedy game than a platformer, but however you categorize it, Level Devil is one of the most delightful games I’ve played in ages.
I’m wary of citing too many examples–the surprise is so much of the fun here. Even when it’s not killing you, seeing your character expand in size (threatening to die by making contact with spikes on the roof) or cheeky sawblades that chase you, disappear into the ground, and then peek out up ahead, had me cackling in a way that few games have. Without a word of dialogue, this might be one of the funniest games I’ve ever played.
There is the opportunity to beat a level on the first try, and knowing how badly the game wants to slap you in the face when you least expect it, there is an added degree of satisfaction to doing so. But you’re best off being able to find the joy in dying–death might come for us all, but it’s rarely as enjoyable and hilarious as it is here.
Level Devil releases for PC on March 25. It’ll feature new levels not available in previous versions of the game, as well as a two-player co-op mode.