#IndieSelect: Super Life of Pixel (NS)

Disclaimer:  I received a free copy of Super Life of Pixel on the Nintendo Switch from publisher WhiteMoon Dreams, Inc. and developer Super Icon Limited through Indie Gamer Chick's #IndieSelect.  The game was given and accepted without promise or expectation of a positive review, only that the game be played, and experiences are shared through social media channels.  All of the words in this article unless otherwise noted are my own from my own experience playing Super Life of Pixel.

When I started looking through what Super Life of Pixel had to offer I was immediately reminded of two games that I have played over the last six years.  The first was Evoland, an RPG from 2013 that evolved through different styles of graphics and gameplay as you progressed through the game.  The second was The Adventures of Elena Temple, a retro platformer that allowed you to play the same game using different skins emulating different fictional gaming systems based on real-life counterparts.  What Super Life of Pixel has done is to take both of those concepts, but ups the offerings by actually using real-world consoles and hand-held systems, some that I had never heard of before and others that I am very familiar with.

Super Life of Pixel is a platformer that lets you play eight stages created in the style of specific computers and gaming consoles throughout history.  Starting with the Sinclair ZX81 with its monochrome screens up through the Sega Saturn (which I have not unlocked because I haven't completed the game yet) with its 16.77 million color display.  The object is to collect the required amount of diamond-shaped jewels in order to unlock the exit to proceed to the next level, while there are other items to collect that eventually unlock additional consoles to play, as well as Pac-Man looking fruit that looks to be there for completionists.  As the player progresses through the consoles, the levels become increasingly more-and-more complex and increase in difficulty without decreasing in the level of fun.  For the most part.  Obviously, there is only so much that a developer can do with a single screen platforming area using the constrictions of an Atari 2600, but once you reach the ZX Spectrum and you play through multiple screens and the screen if full of more and more enemies, that is when the game becomes a little frustrating.

I think this is only doable after you acquire the double jump boots, but I
could be wrong on that note.

For the most part, the difficulty in the different levels seems to vary a bit, some levels being significantly more difficult than others.  The ZX Spectrum levels gave me the most difficulty, specifically with "Monster Palace" and "The Great Outdoors," earning me the "Determined" for dying 20 times in-a-row on the same level on a single playthrough.  The rest of the levels that I have played through (not all of them to remind you) have been a lot more fair-ish.  Most of the levels incorporate the spikes that slide up from the ground at the same interval throughout the level, which is nice when you are trying to time jumps.  The game also allows the player to move the screen up or down to see beyond the immediate playable area, which definitely comes in handy when you are trying to figure out where to jump next after following the diamond jewels to what looks like a cliff.

You really hope that this pit doesn't lead to a floor of retracting spikes.

One last note on the difficulty which specifically has to do with the optional collectibles.  There is a flashing gem (because I cannot call it a jewel since I already used that descriptor) that unlocks the SEGA Master System, which is typically visible in most levels without having to uncover it in a hidden area; think the bandaid in Super Meat Boy.  It requires a little bit more skill to grab and might require the player to look up/down, but rarely is it as hidden as the fruit or the disks.  The fruit and the disks are often located behind hidden walls and require a butt-load more skill and time to acquire than I wanted to put into the game.  It was in the stage above, "Monster Palace" that I gave up trying to earn all of the fruit, and I only found out about the hidden discs by accidentally finding one, and then through some of the message boards did I find out what it actually was that I had found.  And since there are no checkpoints throughout the entire game, which I feel like the game does not really need, I found myself not willing to risk trying to a hard to reach fruit at the risk of having to play through an entire level all over again in the very real chance that I died in the attempt; more so when levels like "The Great Outdoors" took me over 5 minutes to complete.

One of my other criticisms with SLoP is that the presentation of the consoles may not be 100% historically accurate despite the highlighting of the specs for each system before the start of each new collection of levels, but to Super Icon's credit, they do say that the levels are "historically inspired consoles" which you could say is not a claim of historical accuracy.  Out of the first five computers/consoles featured in the game, I have only played on the Atari 2600.  From my own experience playing Atari games (as well as consulting some videos on YouTube), the color palette for each of the stages seems about right, but the amount of detail, for what little detail there actually is, still seems too high for even the latest games released on the system in 1990.  The detail for Pixel and some of the enemies seems too detailed from what the Atari 2600 could produce.  Then combined with the quality of the music playing at the same time as the sound effects in-game, I feel like there were not enough sound channels to produce all of the sound effects and music at the same time.

I knew this as Rush'n Attack, but on the C64 it was Green Beret.

You know, despite all of these criticisms, I have been having a really fun time playing through all of the computer systems and consoles that I never played when I was younger.  I will sit down and play for about 20 minutes at a time, usually getting through 2-3 levels (sometimes more if I fall into a groove) before I put the game down.  Not through lack of fun mind you, but because after playing the same 2-3 levels multiple times over-and-over, I mentally need a break.  Also because the music does not change between levels (it does change when you switch consoles), I feel like an audio break is also in order.  However, I can see someone trying to make the point that if a player feels the need to put a game down and stop playing, then it really is not a good game and should be criticized as such.  Which is definitely not how I feel.  When I am playing, I am having fun, greatly amused by Super Icon Ltd's dedication to taking a simple concept and running with an attempt to do a bit of a history lesson of influential gaming consoles over the last 38 years.  That takes some chutzpah and while the execution may not be Smithsonian levels of accuracy, I feel like they did nail the fun factor, especially when you are able to catch references in level design.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Instrumental