HardAF >> Game Demo Review

Fun & death, all in a neat package

Have an hour or two to spare and like dying a lot? The HardAF Demo might be worth trying if you like precision 2D platformers where even a few pixels in the wrong direction means that you will die. The game has a rather unique concept, the level is illuminated by your blood, the more you die, the more red gets splattered all over the place and the more of the level that you can see. If you are stuck there is even the option to explode yourself to illuminate your surroundings by depositing blood over the numerous circular saws and spikes that make up a large portion of every level.

The demo features 10 levels, Level 1 being a demo level however, so more like 9 levels and they are pretty difficult. Well, that is an understatement, in places they are incredibly challenging and it took me about 1 hour to complete all 10 levels of the demo. The music is good, the graphics, whilst nothing special, have a fitting aesthetic (perhaps Downwell inspired - something to put on the to-play list if you haven’t) that works and it is fun and something that you can pick up and play without having to spend hours working out the controls or understanding the game mechanic.

Designed for players that enjoy speedrun (finish as fast as possible) gaming, I found the game to be enjoyable and something that a lot of people will enjoy. On the other hand, anyone that gets frustrated easily when they die or enjoys a lot of things to discover and power ups to collect may not find the game so great. Whilst the game mechanic is good, there is not much else to do in every level of the demo. There are no powerups to collect or places to explore that I could find, only levels with the objecive of moving from Point A to Point B. You do collect different heads along the way though it was unclear to me what the purpose of these were. Perhaps I missed something, though the heads appeared to be nothing more than for aesthetics/cosmetic (like a skin, to make your character look a bit different) and did not impact on the gameplay itself. Otherwise, definitely something worth trying if you are like the platformer/speedrun genre.

Get it on Steam HardAF Demo

THE GOOD…

• 1+ hours of gameplay in the demo
• Challenging & makes you think before every move
• Unique gameplay mechanic
• Polished design, graphics & music
• Low hardware requirements - should run on most PCs

THE NOT SO GOOD…

• Not for everyone - can be frustrating
• No exploration & no powerups
• May get repetitive quickly
• What are the heads for?

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