Difficulty and satisfaction balanced

THE line between frustration and satisfaction in video games is a fine one at the best of times, and it takes a skilled developer developer to walk this aforementioned tightrope. Swiss developers Adrian Stutz and Florian Faller at Bits & Beasts thread this line with ease and almost always end up on the right side of it. Their latest offering – Feist – is a happy medium between incredibly difficult and undeniably satisfying.

Feist begins with your character, a wooly fluffball, freeing itself from a beast’s trap. From there the concept is simple: go right. It’s an uncomplicated set-up, cut from the same cloth as Mario and Sonic, but an effective one all the same. In many ways, Feist is as remarkable for what it doesn’t include as much as for what it does. There’s no plot, dialogue or collectables to hamper the pacing. Feist isn’t a game about collecting knick-knacks or spinning a yarn; it’s about just one thing: fleeing. Yet Feisy – thankfully – isn’t an auto runner. You’ll frequently hit dead ends that will require extremely quick thinking as you seek to evade the pack of spiders, bees and trolls that are constantly nipping at your heels.

To make matters worse (or better, depending on how you look at it), traps and other interactive environmental structures can be triggered by enemies, and most of the combat resources can be destroyed too. This results in combat encounters that feel like real-life brawls: graceless, messy, and staggeringly violent. For a sidescrolling game with a minimal artstyle, Feist’s violence is unusually affecting. The odds are rarely in the player’s favour. I never felt like I’d mastered Feist, and I never felt like I could invest faith in the skills I had learned.

Don’t let the minimalist side-scrolling style deceive you, Feist is an incredibly challenging title. It’s one of those titles that actually requires a very good player to clear it – there’s no hand-holding here. It may not always be fun, but Feist is an admirable feat and a reccomendation for anyone who requires a serious challenge.

Your character in Feist is a wooly fluffball.