The Fall Is Free On Epic This Week

Monday, Alexx spoke about fighting cats, I went on about social media and game announcements, and later I went on about #EAGate. Tuesday, Taylor spoke about Ghost of Tsushima bucking a trend, and David spoke about Portugal. Wednesday, I spoke about a .JSON and his 1.9 billion friends, Alexx was happy about magic and dragons (again), and I noted that one woman is more sought after than most of her male counterparts. Thursday, I spoke about free games to keep for all PlayStation users, Taylor went on about eSport, and Alexx spoke about the next game from those behind Anodyne 1 & 2.

To this week’s free game on the Epic Games Store, and proof that I need to calibrate my free-game-dar. The question is always, how important is a first impression? With me, it is very important, according to the short study I’ve just bothered to conduct. I’ve spoken before, and I like to make it known, that I only play a short section of each game in this series of articles. I tend to have a short period of time to play them, dependant on download times and effort. Over The Moon’s The Fall is just one of those games that isn’t exciting me as much as other things I’ve been playing of late.

As a dark atmospheric puzzle game that mimics that Limbo-style of art direction, it starts off being sluggish. However, my problems with it started before I even got to the gameplay. Call me a nitpicker if you must, but menus should be legible at the very least. It is very much style over substance and I had several thoughts when the main menu flashed up. The most pervasive one being “Christ, has it crashed already?” It was certainly sluggish realizing input was being made.

However, it is the CRT monitor stylization warping the text on the main menu that is an awful decision. One that makes me want to fire someone into the heart of the sun. “Dave, should we make this important text on our main menu readable?” as I assume was the starter of a conversation had before a whole building fell on someone’s head and gave them severe brain damage. Maybe I am spoiled by Sackboy: A Big Adventure and Loop Hero featuring Dyslexic-friendly fonts, but you don’t invite someone over, then poo on their lap as soon as they sit down. To use a crude metaphor.

From there, I’m just not being grabbed by stumbling about asking myself, “why am I even bothering with this ‘puzzle’ with very little to it?” So much so that the most interesting thing to talk about is the font issues on the main menu. My best way of selling it to you, other than the fact it is free all this week, is simply this: If you like Limbo‘s almost monochromatic art-style and enjoy finding objects in almost Little Nightmares-style, though lacking the physics) puzzles, you’ll be at home with The Fall. I, on the other hand, will be playing anything else possible.

All this week until the 25th of March, you can pick up The Fall for free on the Epic Games Store. Next week we’re more or less continuing this, what some would crudely call a lull. We will be moving on to Creature in the Well. It is what Flight School Studio, developer of the game, calls a top-down pinball-inspired hack and slash. There is far more color than we’ve been dealing with this week. Here is hoping it is far more interesting out the gate, at least enough to grab my attention.