You Have 10 Seconds

For a game that describes itself as "Levels are quick but hard to master", it sure isn't that difficult.

Its main trick isn't the difficulty of the course or mastering its secrets; rather, it's visual deception. The presentation is a bit obnoxious. with a some pattern that flashes in and out in the background while you play that's easily distracting, the player being hard to see among many of the backgrounds due to a poor lack of coloring and distinction, and courses can often be laid out in a way that deceives you into looking difficult, rather than actually being difficult. Once you get past the presentation and how the courses are laid out, it's way easier than it seems, and it becomes less about trial and error and learning the game's tricks and more about fighting against the visual design to look good. There's even a level in the fourth course called "Confused?" which I think says it all. The final final area of course four is at least the least obnoxious-looking. A nice touch is that the lives counter stays static on a certain point of the level. If that's intentional, it's admittedly pretty funny.

There are also in-game achievements, but with the way this game is set up, why even bother going for those? As far as the soundtrack goes, it's pretty typical pump-up music, but not really anything more than decent. And thankfully the game doesn't belabor itself with dragging it on too long; I was able to more or less see everything and get the big picture in 20 minutes.

There's a sequel in the works, which I hope is frustrating but for the right reasons this time, rather than the wrong ones. I don't expect any of these side-scrolling, difficult 2D platformers to be on the same level as other highly-praised examples of the genre, but if the game has to rely on tricking you to give the illusion of difficulty, it's not really difficult so much as it is a burden.