Team Meat’s new auto-runner is just brutal
Team Meat’s new project Super Meat Boy Forever made its first appearance today at PAX Prime in Seattle — and it makes the original game look like a cakewalk by comparison.
The newly revealed title is an auto-run platformer in the vein of Bit.Trip Runner following our eponymous hero journey through obstacle courses laden with deadly traps. Players will need to navigate treacherous gaps and elaborate configurations of saw blades in hopes of reuniting with Meat Boy’s beloved Bandage Girl.
The experience is akin to driving a car with faulty breaks. It puts players behind the wheel and requires they avoid any and all hazards placed in their path. One’s agency extends only to jumping and ducking, the latter of which allows our protagonist to fall more quickly than usual and slide beneath low-hanging obstacles.
The new constraints make for a far more difficult game, part of which can also be attributed to the title’s randomly-generated levels.
Stages are essentially playlists made up of pre-designed challenges Team Meat refers to as “chunks” placed on shuffle. Well, sort of. The configuration in which these hurdles appear isn’t entirely without order. Chunks are ordered into three difficulty tiers, ensuring for a progressively more challenging experience.
Though the title is designed for smartphones and tablet devices, it’s also coming to PC, and programmer Tommy Refenes stresses Super Meat Boy Forever is far from another disposable mobile game.
Players can expect a similar amount of content as what’s found in Super Meat Boy, complete with a myriad of new environments and challenging bosses to surmount. Rest assured, it isn’t just styled after the existing Xbox 360 and PC game.
I’m convinced Forever will be a far tougher nut to crack than was its predecessor. After an extensive amount of time with a particularly challenging build of the game Team Meat put together just to test the press, I only managed to complete a handful of levels and eventually succumbed to a dark world stage that Refenes admitted even he has yet to conquer.
Despite the extreme difficulty, I couldn’t help but smile throughout the demo. Super Meat Boy Forever looks and feels amazing. It’s the kind of game you can pick up for two minutes only to discover hours have gone by. ‘Just one more try’ never seems to be enough.
Super Meat Boy Forever is targeted for a 2015 release, and Refenes says it will be “affordable.”
