A One-Button Curiosity Shop That Continues The Improvement
I’ve gone from dreading these One Button Games collections to rather enjoying them. The fact they’re improving with each compendium is a big part of that, of course. But I’m also on board with their objective. After twenty games across four collections, I can see that making one-button is a huge challenge, and making them enjoyable is even harder.
So, without further ado, it’s time for the customary per-game review, this time looking at One Button Games 5-in-1 vol. 4. I will be using all ten of my fingers to write them.
Light Dark – 3.5/5
One Button Games have a cheeky secret. The best games tend to be at the top of the menu, and the ones worth hiding are at the bottom. One Button Games 5-in-1 vol. 4 is no different.
Light Dark feels like someone played Mirror Floor from One Button Games 5-in-1 vol. 3 and decided to fix it. That game was verging on unplayable, Light Dark is the opposite.
It’s like this: in Light Dark, you have a top level and a bottom level. Both have spikes on. Let’s imagine spikes are coming towards you on the top-half of the level, you need to press A to quickly switch to the bottom-half of the level. There might be spikes there too, so you need to switch back. Equally, there might be coins, which garner you a top score. You should stick around for those.
I reached full zen in Light Dark. I could feel myself at-one with the game, mastering the switch between halves. I gobbled up all the achievements on my second run, which made me feel like I had achieved full Jedi Master status.
Balls Bombs – 3/5
Balls Bombs is the one that shouldn’t work but kind of does.
Balls rain down on you from above, refusing to bloody go away. They bounce left then right then left again. Your little dude will walk continually forward until – one-button alert! – you press the A button to slow yourself. If a ball is arcing towards your face, you should lightly tap the A button so that doesn’t happen.
The infinitely bouncing balls would feel daunting if it weren’t for the bombs. On occasion you will trundle over a bomb, and this doubles up as a shield (you can survive one ball-hit) and an explosive. Once you’re hit by a ball, the bomb detonates and all of the balls onscreen get wiped. The more balls you clear, the higher the score.
More so than Light Dark, say, Balls Bombs feels like you’re always on the cusp of dying. There are so many balls and so few bombs that it can feel a tad frantic and random. You’re going to be feeling like a lucky bastard more than a masterful player, which keeps it from the big scores.
Bamboo – 3/5
The further down the list we go, the more utterly random.
I’m not sure why you don’t play a panda in Bamboo. Instead, you play a bamboo farmer who can’t keep on top of the sheer amount of bamboo they’re growing.
Yellow bamboo keeps springing up, and your bamboo farmer will automatically chop them down when they move into it. But if you don’t chop them down in time, they become the dreaded green bamboo. When green, the farmer will cut the shoot but bounce in the opposite direction, creating an interruption of rhythm. Yellow keeps you travelling in the same direction, green bounces you in the opposite. Pressing A switches your direction.
And if the green shoot reaches the top of the screen? BAMBOO DEATH.
I quite like the memory game of Bamboo. Predicting which direction you will face after cutting a bushel of bamboo is genuinely a challenge. I’m not sure why anyone would hold A to ‘walk through’ the bamboo, though; it has no purpose. You want to always be cutting. It’s the move of a madman.
Two Faced – 1/5
I suspect I am being cruel to Two Faced with that 1 out of 5. If I understood what it was trying to do, the score might lift up a little. But I don’t.
To my uneducated eyes, it seems to be Snake, but the snake rotates around a point. You can press A to rotate anti-clockwise around a different point, making figure-eights. The aim is clearly to pick up apples, but that control scheme immediately gets in the way. I felt like I was playing Clumsy Rush or another ragebait game, trying to wrestle my snake to where I want.
Two Faced is already in knots before it adds in a dual screen. You can move from a left-hand screen to a right-hand screen and vice versa, but it’s not clear how they actually line up. It’s certainly not as simple as Pac-Manning from one screen to the other.
If that wasn’t enough, there are two ways to die and I don’t get either of them. You can hit the walls of each screen, but – wait – why are there walls? I thought Two Faced wanted me to move from one screen to the other? And you can die by eating your tail. But you’re perpetually circling round, so that’s going to happen all of the time. I guess you’re meant to constantly move, but where’s the fun in that?
Baroll – 3/5
Last but not least is Baroll (as in Barrel, but Rolling). It’s another endless runner, but with barrels Donkey-Konging their way towards you. The barrels bounce and roll in different ways, so there’s a degree of anticipation. Do you duck under a high-bouncing barrel, or do you attempt to leap over it?
I’m not convinced by Baroll’s ‘hold A’ function. Pressing it causes your character to stop stock-still, which doesn’t have a fantastic use-case. Only about 1% of barrels would benefit from standing still, so you’re probably best ignoring it completely.
Once you do learn to ignore it, Baroll is the second game that has a zen-like flow to it. It’s less interesting than Light Dark, but it still jabs at the adrenaline glands. We found a sweet-spot where we could effectively jump over every barrel, regardless of the angle of its bounce, and we farmed it to oblivion.
When A Game Has A Higher Score Out Of Five Than The Buttons It Uses
One Button Games 5-in-1 vol. 4 continues the upward trajectory of the One Button collections. I don’t think it swings-and-hits as much as One Button Games 5-in-1 vol. 3, but it’s superior to the first two, slightly shonkier collections, One Button Games 5-in-1 vol. 1 and One Button Games 5-in-1 vol. 2.
At the very least, you can see what happens when someone makes five games that require the use of a single button. The answer is madness, adrenaline and one game that is a complete enigma.
Important Links
One Button Games Returns With Volume 4 – https://www.thexboxhub.com/one-button-games-returns-with-volume-4/
There’s an Xbox One version too – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/one-button-games-5-in-1-vol-4-xbox-one/9NMVK4P54X4P/0010
Buy from the Xbox Store – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/one-button-games-5-in-1-vol-4/9PJMZBWJM4W1/0010
