Developer: Silver Dollar Games
Publisher: Silver Dollar Games
Rrp: £3.99
Released: 3rd March 2014
Available on Steam
Played using: A Xbox 360 Controller
Well, I can’t say I saw this coming, Silver Dollar Games aren’t exactly known for creating fun and engaging games…. in fact they’re most well known for creating shovelware on Steam, or at least they were til’ this title.
One Finger Death Punch is the story of a stickman on a quest to avenge your family, or maybe its the story of a stickman carving a path of blood and bodies until no one is left. The truth is there isn’t a story, you just play as a stickman who’s well versed in the martial arts.
The controls of One Finger Death Punch are simple, if you use the mouse the left mouse button attacks left and the right right, simple right? Just wait til you get fighting. On the controller X punches left and B Right (I use a 360 style controller so it may be different on other types).
Once you’re in the first level you’ll likely notice that your stickman stands in the centre of the screen atop of a silver bar. This bar is your attack area, if an enemies steps inside it you can attack them…. thing is you have to wait until they get into the zone to actually do that, unless you have a ranged weapon.
The enemies come at you in several colours which bestow different abilities. Grey attackers are simple one hit kill attack, greens require two hits blues dodge the first hit and spring up on the opposite side of you. There are also brawlers which when attacked enter you into a rhythm style challenge, which when you think about it the whole game is (yes I know its not based on music but I still call it a rhythm game). A few of these enemies will be carrying a weapon or two which once they are defeated you can pick up. These extend the reach of your attacks making missing less likely, they do have a finite lifespan though and fail will after a few attacks.
Skills become unlocked as you progress and complete certain levels. you can have up to three of your skills activated on a given level. These are accessed through the skill menu on the level select screen. The types of levels available are quite varied, for exapmle a Speed level gives you a time limit to kill all the enemies, Mob levels are where you fight enemies en-mass and a Boss level requires you to fight a boss who changes attack style every so often.
As you complete more levels without dying the enemies movement speed will increase, this increases the amount of points you receive. Should you die (by losing the hit points you are given) the movement speed will decrease and thus give you less points.
These points are shown on a leaderboard accessible through the main screen, so if you have a friend that plays you can complete with each other.
Graphically the game is very basic, but considering the sheer level of enemies that attack you at once it makes sense and suits it perfectly. The last thing you need in your high octane fight with multiple enemies is overly complicated graphics. Most of the detail has been put into the backgrounds you fight in rather than you or your enemies.
It just goes to show a great concept that’s well implemented can go an extremely long way. Because in truth this game is basically all mechanics and no narrative… not that one is actually needed for this.
After you have gotten far enough in the levels mode the Survival mode will become unlocked.
As you would expect in Survival mode you’re fighting to survive for as long as possible during a endless horde of enemies, get five hundred kills in that and you unlock Blind Survival mode. In Blind Survival all enemy indicators are taken away apart from the colour and you no longer can see your attack zone, so you have to make the best guess you can and try to remember the move patterns your enemies.
Its hard not to feel like a god when you’ve just slaughtered fifty enemies without a single scratch or miss. The game is an amazingly cathartic experience, in fact my best scores were from when I ‘zoned out’ and stopped trying to follow every minor movement. Its also great for being a game you can just picking up and have a quick blast on. So yeah, I think everyone should get this game, its not exactly expensive and once you’ve completed the ‘student’ difficulty the next step up unlocks which really ramps up the challenge.
