Alongside my wonderful associates, Michael and Jessica, I had the chance to try out Paul Kopetko’s Boomerang Fu. If you don’t know, it’s a delightful party-brawler that pits you and up to three friends against one another in a battle of wits, reflexes, and boomerangs. After playing a few rounds with the team, I found myself getting addicted to the simple but incredibly satisfying joy of destroying your friends with super-powered boomerangs.
In Boomerang Fu, you play as an anthropomorphic food or drink. From a cup of coffee to a sliced avocado, the playable foods seem to be pretty honed-in on my generation. Regardless, it’s immensely satisfying to slash these adorable foods to pieces with your boomerang, both because of a very temporary flash of slo-mo and the incredibly satisfying sounds of a coffee mug shattering, or a watermelon slice being cleanly chopped. This is enhanced by the simplicity of Boomerang Fu, which is possibly its greatest selling point.
One button slashes with your boomerang, one trigger throws it, and another button dashes. There are power-ups that make you or your boomerang more powerful, and that’s it. This simplicity means that Boomerang Fu is easy to grasp for anyone, whether you’re a gamer or not. But this accessibility has no negative effect on how enjoyable the game is. The three of us had a blast killing one another with all sorts of wacky boomerangs and stage traps, and we weren’t bored for a single second. Summoning your lost boomerang back to kill a friend from behind is worryingly cathartic, as is dodging their projectile at the last second to hit them into a crushing wall-trap. Simplicity is sometimes for the best, as Boomerang Fu seems to prove.
Boomerang Fu is currently planned to release early next year for the Xbox One and PC. Stay tuned to MonsterVine for more GDC coverage.
