I didn’t know what McPixel was until about an hour ago when our Reviews Manager, Diego Escala, posted a preview opp in the chat. I watched the trailer and decided it was my kind of weird, and from the demo I played, that’s definitely been confirmed. McPixel 3 reminds me of many of the wacky Flash games I played as a kid, and I mean that in the best way.
The demo for McPixel 3 is a series of timed minigames that put your little character in a dangerous situation. It might be a train that’s speeding towards a cliff or a plane that’s on fire and veering downwards. The only items around you include things like a flash, a shovel, or a bomb, with which you have to figure out how to save the situation. It’s a fun concept that leads to some crazy “solutions,” which are as random as it gets. More often than not, you blow things up, but seeing all the different “endings” is entertaining. You move on to the next minigame after each success or failure (excluding ones you’ve already beaten,) until you unlock the last stage.
There’s a lot of interactivity depending on what items you click on in your unrelenting quest to save each scenario. You can do anything from kicking a person down the stairs to putting a wig on a fish. It’s hard to predict what certain items will do, as your expectations are often defied in goofy ways. Whether or not the humor lands will depend on your comedic sensibilities, but I can almost guarantee that you won’t see a lot of the endings coming. You get different interactions checked off for performing them, which gives you further motivation to go back and try to 100% the demo, even after “beating” it.
“I’ll definitely give the full game a go so that I can see all the crazy situations.“
As the name implies, McPixel 3 has some rather sharp pixel art. The characters are simple but diverse, while the backgrounds are lively without being distracting. The comical animations have a lot of personality, which suits the demo quite well.
Though it was a short demo, I had a fun half-hour or so with McPixel 3. I’ll definitely give the full game a go so that I can see all the crazy situations. If you want a straightforward little title or a nostalgic throwback to the simplicity of Flash games like the Henry Stickmin series, McPixel 3 may be the game for you. The first two McPixel games are on Steam for pretty cheap, so check them out and see if it’s your vibe.
