BOOMERANG FU

Goddamn banana. I hate the thing. It’s so soft and peely, begging to be sliced. Take your eyes off it for a second and it’s become a crate, or plant pot, disguised, ready to pluck the stone right out of your avocado with a slash of its boomerang. And do not get me started on the donut. Party games. I generally wouldn’t choose them, but I kept crossing paths with Boomerang Fu, at PAX Australia, even Beer and Pixels. Everyone was like, “This game is amazing.” They were right. Why? It’s your typical party game, while also being incredibly neat and somewhat more.

My favourite mode is Free for All, because it allows you to collect power-ups that persist across a range of thoughtfully crafted levels, with dangerous terrain, teleporters and levers to trigger hazards. Did the sushi pick up a second boomerang and the ability to dash through walls? That’s trouble, on a maze level. Throwing boomerangs is less risky than slashing with them at close range, and they’ll rebound off walls. I particularly like throwing, then positioning myself so that the boomerang will slice an adversary on its way magically back to my hand.

You should play Boomerang Fu after lunch, not before. And only when you’re angry with food. I feel like this polished experience has given me the opportunity to finally appreciate Fruit Ninja, as well as a genre I don’t often engage with; fruit slicing, I mean, party games. If I have any criticisms, it’s that there isn’t a D on the end of Fu, and that multiplayer online isn’t available (at the time of writing). So, you’ll have to invite everyone over and get out the nibblies. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a watermelon to mess up.