For those of us who were in school in the early 2000s, playing flash games on the school laptop while in class is a core memory. These games were often simple, with straightforward progression, and incredibly addicting gameplay.
In this regard, Ad Fundum follows along in their footsteps.
Flash Of Inspiration
Despite its flash game inspirations, Ad Fundum does have a variety of more modern quality of life updates not often seen in those early days. The first and most impressive is the amount of settings you have to adjust. There are basics such as difficulty which can be further customized depending on preferences, and volume, to even thoughtful additions such as a claustrophobia safe mode. However someone may want to play, Ad Fundum does its best to make itself accessible.
Another modern update is that of a story. However, while not bad, it’s also not a particularly gripping or novel narrative. Without any spoilers, your father died in search of finding a new element to save humanity from another war. So now it’s on you, your mech, and a handful of allies hired by your father to finish his work and save humanity. While there are some twists and multiple endings, overall, the narrative doesn’t take anything away or distract from the real draw of the game: the gameplay.
The main gameplay loop of Ad Fundum is simple yet satisfying: you dig ores, return to the surface to sell ores, use the money to buy upgrades, then dig deeper for better ores and repeat. This is levied by a surprising amount of upgrades for both the mech and base to spend money on as well as items to assist. The upgrades in particular provide some degree of personal preference, providing two tracks, one light and one heavy, depending on playstyle.
Digging for Nostalgia in a Modern Mech Adventure
That is not all though. While exploring, you’ll find remnants of older mechs from your father’s expedition that provide specific upgrades and discounts on those upgrades then more you find. As opposed to the general upgrades you get on the surface, these are often crucial to progressing deeper. They do this by providing specific bonuses such as an overheat which makes you move faster but also provides extra heat to help survive the ice level.
Delving deeper is relatively simple thanks to essentially using only RT for items and either the Left Stick or D-pad to move. Despite the lack of things to do, it is never boring to play. Between searching for ore, checking for the threats or challenges present in later levels, and navigating the underground it is actually helpful to not have to also fiddle with a bunch of controls.
Simple Control, Finicky Drills
While the controls are simple, essentially just moving your mech around, it is also where there’s the most notable annoyances. The first comes from the digging aspect. Since you dig by just walking into the dirt or ore, the digging is automatic. While you can cancel digging by moving in the opposite direction, sometimes it’s too late especially as you upgrade the drill and thus cutting off potentially easier avenues to reach ore. Also, as you delve deeper, the vibration from the drill can cause problems and while this can be mitigated by an upgrade, it is still annoying to die or lose a resource due to accidentally moving into a block of rocks.
Lastly, there are some technical problems with Ad Fundum. There was stuttering every time I left the underground into the surface area. While this is only for a split-to-full second, due to how often you return to the surface it was very noticeable. And, more problematically, was that the game had a habit of crashing randomly. This happened mostly during the earthquakes, but since those are random it was impossible to tell. While it’s not too much of a problem due to the auto saving every time you reach the surface or quit, it is always frustrating to lose progress due to technical problems.
Rock ‘n’ Retro
As previously mentioned, it’s important to explore to find ore, mech parts and also other collectables. So it’s great the exploration is enjoyable. With each level it gets more difficult to dig, but never impossible and provides new challenges to maneuver around, providing a refresh despite the simple mechanics. It also never wastes your time. Outside of the ore, which is very prevalent, each level has collectables and upgrades to find as well. This means that essentially every time you play it’s easy to make progress no matter how long you play.
However, the main goal is to go deeper in the hope to find your father. Thus with each new level you find new and more valuable ore to sell to buy new upgrades as well as new challenges and upgrades. As enticing as it is to dive right into the unknown, take a moment to call your allies. While this is mentioned early on, and even though the game doesn’t force you too, it’s almost necessary to do so to understand the new nuances and avoid potential frustrations. Even though sometimes it just gives a bit of flavour text, it becomes integral to understanding how to survive the levels from the middle point onwards. These allies you can contact on your radio are, for the most part, the only other characters you’ll be able to contact. While none necessarily stand out, each does have their own personality thus making it more than just a pleasant portrait to talk with.
Evolving Mechs and Industrial Beats
Even outside of the character portraits, Ad Fundum is visually quite nice as you never are forced to stare at the same thing for long. Each layer has a very distinct style, not just in the colour of the rocks and ore that you find, but in how the rocks are designed too. Similarly each core upgrade you make for the mech changes its appearance which is a nice touch. And overall, it fits the simple flash aesthetic with aplomb.
Like the visuals, the audio fits in snuggly. The background music is simple but unobtrusive, providing a fittingly industrial backbeat. However it quickly falls into the background by the sounds of drilling and ringing of alarms as systems get further stressed. Somehow, maybe the most impressive aspect is how Ad Fundum managed to make the alarm sound not terribly annoying despite how much you will hear it.
A Small Price for a Wealth of Replayability
If you have a hankering for a simpler time of flash games that the more modern offerings can’t sate, Ad Fundum may just be the game for you. Outside of some minor control and technical issues, it provides loads of gameplay and replayability for a relatively small price and size.
Whether an experienced gamer looking for a hit of nostalgia to first time gamers wanting to see what the medium is about, Ad Fundum is an enjoyable time for anyone who wants to experience it.
Important Links
Dig Deep, Upgrade Wisely, and Try Not to Explode in Ad Fundum – https://www.thexboxhub.com/dig-deep-upgrade-wisely-and-try-not-to-explode-in-ad-fundum/
Buy from the Xbox Store – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/ad-fundum/9NDT27C1N79Z/0010
