Manual Samuel

Samuel is at a café with his girlfriend, but after an argument, she lashes out and hits him over the head. After staggering to his feet, he knocks into a nearby table, and a woman throws a drink in his face. Even more staggered, with hazy vision, he leaves the café to catch up to his girlfriend, but is hit by a truck. Arriving in hell, he makes a deal with Death, one of the Riders of the Apocalypse. Samuel returns to the real world but has to live out a day with severe movement impairments. Luckily, Death is also there to guide him, or at least get into comedic citations with him.

There’s eight levels, and plenty of hilarity across them. The Right and Left trigger moves your legs, A button blinks to restore your vision, Right and Left buttons use your arms to grab and carry objects, X and B button inhales/exhales for breathing or blowing on things.

Samuel can go without breathing for a short while, so you can often concentrate on walking, but blinking and breathing every 15 seconds. If you try and move the same leg twice, then you will fall. Every so often, Samuel will begin to slump, so you need to press Up on the D-Pad to straighten his spine.

Your tasks are different on each level. Most of them are on foot, but there’s one where you have to drive a car down a straight road, changing lanes occasionally. There’s some combat sections in a mech suit. In the combat sections, you basically just get knocked down when you fail; there’s no game-overs or being sent back to a checkpoint. On foot, you will be carrying objects, trying to navigate stairs, performing simple tasks like trying to drink coffee.

The game is narrated, so you have some comedic commentary to describe your successes and failures. There’s plenty of humour in the commentary, dialogue, and situations.

The game is short, and I completed it in one sitting. It’s around 2-2.5 hours, but you can replay the levels for a Time Trial.

The gameplay is naturally frustrating but the game isn’t punishing since there’s no fail states. The comedic commentary really enhances the fun and alleviates any frustration you have.