There’s a lot of ways to ruin friendships when playing a game. Games like Mario Party and Nintendoland have you building temporary alliances and never-forgotten rivalries from past betrayals. Others like Mario Kart or Super Smash Bros relying solely on yourself for victory with the randomness of items to keep things interesting and forcing you to be globally aware but you still feel the anguist when victory is snatched from your grasps by a well-timed red-shell or a lucky pokeball grab.
It’s weird to find a party game that doesn’t have you building a hatred for the people that you’re with over time, but Ultimate Chicken Horse was definitely on its way there.
The premise is simple, get your character to the end of the stage, i.e. where the flag is, 3-times. Where the frustration party comes in is that between every stage every player gets to pick a platforming obstacle and place it on the stage.
To get to the flag you place other platforms on the stage to cross the gaps between the starting point and ending point, but you’re given plenty of other parts to work with; thing like circulating sawblades and chicken wire and automated crossbows, things that don’t make the game easy and that can be placed in plenty of dickish places to make you exude hate. But it’s not an unending hate similar to Mario Party or Smash Bros, because a dickish placement doesn’t mean that the other players will win, but only means it will be harder to win because everyone has to deal with the placement of poorly thought-up platforms. And that makes all the difference.
Because one person isn’t solely responsible for you losing, it never feels like a personal attack so it’s easier to laugh it off and forget. Because it’s ultimately just a platforming game you just need to get acclimated to the controls to play the game well, and the only challenge is your ability to adapt to the poorly designed abomination that the level morphs into as your friends make gradually worse decision in making a beatable level.
Had Fun; Would Suggest.
Twitter: @GIntrospection
Blaugust Day 29
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