Woah Dave!

Woah Dave! is a single screen attempt at building what probably amounts to a retroclone from the arcade era. It feels very familiar, honestly blending elements from Mario Brothers the not super, arcade pixel art and Super Mario Brothers 2 (NES version) into one relatively cohesive game. If that sounds like I'm bashing it, well, it depends on how much design space you imagine there is within a single screen and how much polish you think the game should have.

Oh, and it sort of reminds me of Super Hang-On, although that's probably the sort of subjective memory absolutely no one will get.

At its core the game is extremely simple, but there is just a little more to it than you think there is. At first it just looks like you pick things (that eventually explode) up and throw them at things, which become more dangerous things if you don't handle them and while that is all there is to it, there is a weird sort of strategy to each of the levels that begins to become apparent, especially when things get out of hand. It simple, but I find it fun. It also sounds good, and the music is very catchy although there is really only one track or at least only one set of tracks that play as you get deeper into the level. They did not add additional tracks with the additional levels in the "deluxe" update, which is a little disappointing, primarily predicated on the fact the music is legitimately catchy.

There is a progression from the word go, with the lowest floor slowly being consumed with lava, and then various new enemies added once you've reached enough score, with some other modifications. It does give the game a sense of shifting change, but it's nothing major. Basically what you see is what you get. It plays smoothly and it plays pretty frantic, but that's about it.

The game is, as I said, simple ... But it in some ways even for the goal it sets out for itself are undermined by being a little too simple. As I said, one of the dangers is the things you pick up explode. The problem here kinda goes a little in a couple ways. For one, your character can leap out of the screen, which can muddle the things you're carrying or pick up things that haven't dropped on the screen yet. This is minor. Less so is how difficult it is to discern the remaining time of objects on the ground, especially if they stack up, which the game can happily do by itself. There's no real reason the game can't shade objects a little more, or shift their sizes a little to make them all not almost identical, and it can really add to the frustration for really no real design benefit.

The other thing about Woah Dave! is the game almost works against its best fun. Essentially speaking, you most enjoy it when you're scrambling around, struggling to try to keep up with the downward flow and ever upgrading aliens. The problem is that, due to the randomization of drops, you can never get behind - if you're ever behind, it is very likely the next drop you sorely need to catch up won't be the one you need or even worse drop onto something you need to deal with, preventing you from reacting. Once the screen becomes polluted with rapidly evolving foes, you're pretty much done. The best, frantic moments don't last long. It feels awesome to recover, but it is rare that manage to. On the other hand, drops are random, so sometimes they just fall in the same spot as the same item repeatedly and you get pretty bored.

Regardless, I played it for more than a few hours and quite enjoyed my time with it. It's nothing groundbreaking, but it's good clean fun for a time, which is more than I can say for most retroclone stuff, you know?