Full Bore

I believe that the devs of this game made something truly special. Although many years have passed since this obscure puzzle-platformer released, it remains one of my favourites. It’s had a place in my mind even after I finished it. What makes this game so exemplary and unique?

The game’s presentation is rather affable at the start. The game’s pixelated graphics are a little quirky but very cute and well done. The only thing that hints at the game’s unusual character is the experimental blues soundtrack, which is enjoyable. You play a boar that, because of circumstance, is forced to venture into mines underground and collect gems to pay a debt. This is a puzzle-platformer where the player has no jump ability– a majority of vertical ascension is done by climbing up blocks and platforms. You will be solving a lot of challenges by building staircases out of crates or carving them out of dirt tunnels. Verticality is an actual deal in Full Bore.

This is also a game with navigation that is completely grid-based. You move in tiles, game objects exist on a tile-grid– everything is situated on a grid. There’s also a rewind feature, which is what you want in this kind of puzzle game, but it’s not completely robust. The rewind ‘memory’ will remember your last couple actions but as it goes back, it starts skipping over chunks of time. I wish it was fuller but it’s still very useful, though.

It’s a lot easier to go downwards than upwards, and sometimes you will fall down a shaft and won’t be able to climb back up. This creates moments in the game where the atmosphere is oppressive and uncertain because you keeping descending into deeper layers of this world with no way to return. I even quit the game the first I played because I assumed you were barred from returning to previous areas but there is a fast travel function and aside from bits of dialogue nothing in this game is truly missable.

So, it’s off to the mines to collect gems! It’s the kind of premise that could be the excuse plot for any arcade-styled indie title that needs to get its story out of the way and focus on the gameplay, you’d be surprised how serious this game takes it story. This gem-sniffing business is mostly a red herring as not too far in the game, the main plot is revealed and the focus shifts from collecting gems to uncovering eldritch secrets hidden deep within the game world’s underground.

I won’t spoil anymore than I need to but the game’s story is very surreal and it has very dark and intricate lore. It serves as a delightful context for the game’s meat: the puzzles. The puzzles, especially the ones meant for more obscure collectibles, are challenging, fun and carefully crafted. I’d recommend this title on the puzzles alone! The game does have the problem where some puzzles aren’t really challenges to be solved but are more about watching these game elements interact in a very setpiecey way and you just get to sit back and watch the Rube-Goldberg unfold and you get a reward at the end. Those are few, though; the game usually provides delectable mechanisms. The puzzles come in many sizes. Some are big room mechanisms that require complicated thinking to complete, while others are simple ones that only require a couple tricks to progress forward.

This game is also rotten with secrets. Figuring out how the game obscures secret exits or special rooms is wondrous and uncovering these secrets is loads of fun. The game’s map signifies which kind of secrets/collectibles haven’t been found yet so it’s very easy to figure out which secrets you are missing.

This game has some issues though. I think backtracking, even with the fast travel feature you unlock, can be frustrating as you will have to renavigate rooms to get to where you want to go and you might have to redo some basic puzzles to progress. The other big issue is that the game’s controls could be improved. They’re very touchy. You push and dig in this game by moving into objects but when your movement is the game button that also pushes and digs, you can to be very careful that you let go of the movement key as soon as the dirt has been dug, or the crate has been pushed, etc, lest you fall off a platform and have to rewind. The rewind feature alleviates a lot of issues that could come from overstepping a push or something, but still, the touchiness of it can get very frustrating. The game feels like it needed a ‘brake’ control to keep the boar in place.

And that’s the front and back it! Despite some problems, I think this is a nearly irresistable puzzle-platformer experience. It might not be well-known, but many who have played it continue to praise it, myself included.