140 is a charming, minimalistic platformer in which you will rely upon your ears as well as your eyes to survive and prevail. Don’t be lulled into a false sense of security by the lack of storyline, narration or characters – 140 is a challenging game.
You take control of a shapeshifting geometric protagonist whose goal is to collect small dots and replace them in semi-circle receptacles to change the world around you, allowing you to progress through the level. You’ll be a square when stationary, circle when traversing along the ground, and a triangle when you’re airborne. The creator, Jeppe Carlsen, has done well to give a bit of personality and life to geometric shapes – something that makes the game somewhat reminiscent, if in art style alone, to Thomas Was Alone.
The puzzles, obstacles, and hurdles that you will face will dance along with the beat. Incidentally, the name of the game comes from the number of beats per minute on the game’s soundtrack. The mechanic of having the music always matching up with the gameplay means that you feel connected to the world and you find yourself paying closer attention to the soundtrack to find patterns.
After returning each small dot to the correct place, the world will alter in appearance and introduce one or two new mechanics. This is a genius move to keep the game both familiar and fresh at the same time. The world looks and behaves differently, but ultimately has the same form. The mechanics are all rhythm and music based which all compound upon the game’s score, raising the pressure.
The rhythm of the music will be your closest companion if you’re to complete 140. Obstacles move to a specific rhythm and being in tune with your musical side will certainly help you traverse obstacles, overcome gravity and most importantly avoid the static white noise which is, naturally, deadly. The game can be quite difficult, especially if you’re tone deaf and rhythmically challenged like me – in fact, the first achievement I unlocked in 140 was awarded for dying 63 times… Great.
Once you complete a stage, there is a corresponding boss battle. These are all unique in design and are a highlight of the game. They are also incredibly difficult. That is, until you become in tune with your inner metronome and work out what the game wants you to do. It’s an incredibly gratifying feeling when you finally beat the bosses as they are often intense ordeals requiring lightning fast reactions.
The abstract colours which make up 140’s art style seems a bit garish and gaudy – often not being complementary and just ended up looking… weird. They are more the kind of colours you see when you let children mix paints together and by the end of the day you’re left with weird green-brown sludge colours. That being said, it’s not a bad looking game. The backgrounds of the worlds that you inhabit dance along to the game’s music like the visualiser from Windows Media Player back on Windows XP, creating a lively environment.
The game is incredibly short, and has little replay value unless you are a completionist and want to beat the challenge modes for each level, of which there are three. Once you have completed the game, if you want to retry a boss battle you will have to slog through the stages all over again, which serves only to artificially inflate the time you spend playing it.
Often, there is a distinct lack of flow to the game and this is both really jarring and concerning. Then again, this could be down to my musical ear in need of a transplant. It sometimes feels as if the obstacles are too close together, meaning in a sequence of beats I found myself stopping halfway through as opposed to timing it right to begin with and gliding straight through.
Oh, one other thing. If you’re wanting to switch off the game and come back to it while you haven’t beaten the stage, you’ll have to start over. There’s no save-in-progress feature which is a major gripe.
Overall, 140 is a brilliant, hypnotising game which you can easily complete in one sitting. The boss battles are all unique enjoyable experiences and the game’s achievement list offers challenge modes for each boss battle. However, the game just doesn’t have enough to it. There are only three stages and very limited replay value. For a game based around rhythmic platforming there doesn’t seem to be any flow in stages, unlike similar titles such as Bit.Trip Runner and The Impossible Game which 140 reminds me of. Sometimes the sections are jarring and a bit of extra curation could have made them flow beautifully.
