Do Not Fall
Developer: XPEC Entertainment Inc
Price: $9.99
Platform: PS3 (SEN/PSN)
A download code for Do Not Fall was supplied to us
Do Not Fall delivers on challenging floor falling platforming wrapped in a quirky context, albeit conceptually simple and repetitive.
Do Not Fall has players take control of cute characters that live inside of a vending machine, and are in charge of producing the drinks offered from said machine.
Each of the 10 worlds features a different beverage distributed by the vending machine. Players start with the basic water levels and progress to deliver a variety of drinks to never seen customers.
The gameplay is simple to grasp, navigate the floating platforms (most of which disappear after making first contact, but reappear after a set time) while collecting nuts, bolts and keys to get to the end level. At the end of a level, players are given points based on how much of the items they collected and how fast they completed the stage. They are also deducted points for the number of falls.
The stages start out easy but quickly ramps up the difficulty by constantly adding new enemies to avoid and different disappearing platform mechanics. In the Green Tea level set, Japanese lanterns are used as blocks.
One thing that kept me coming back was the goofy grin the game left me with whenever I saw or heard something new. The voice acting features a thick Chinese accent and the character designs and names are all strange. I spent most of my time in single player with the pudgy tanuki, which translated as “raccoon dog,” a term I was unfamiliar with prior to playing Do Not Fall.
The game was originally designed as a multiplayer only game, which could explain why the story premise is so odd, but unfortunately the online community for the game is dead on arrival. Luckily the game offers four-player local, and even throws in bots if you don’t have a full party. It is a shame the online scene is so dead because it reminds me of a top down Battleblock Theater– charming, chaotic and fast paced. Do Not Fall does not offer any customization options or a level creator and as a result it doesn’t have much lasting or diverse appeal.
What Do Not Fall does have is six multiplayer modes. All of which contain the same falling blocks from the single player experience, with some unique scoring mechanics in place. One mode has players grabbing and kicking soccer balls into goals. King of the hill has players grabbing a crown and staying on the level for as long as possible, giving the crown to the player who delivered the falling blow. Gold Rush mode spawns yellow blocks randomly across the board and players earn points by making them disappear. Last man Standing will put make all of the blocks but four disappear at once. Capture the base has players step on and claim switches in order to rack up points over time. Finally, color mode has players paint blocks their color by stepping on them and cashing them in at their base which also causes them to disappear. My favorite of these modes is the color mode. It was frantic while still left me feeling like I had room for strategy and the ability to be precise in my actions. In most of the other modes it becomes difficult to play against the bot players which seem to always have a leg up in every aspect of the game.
The Final Word
Do Not Fall is a fun view into what life would be like for a rabbit inside of a vending machine. It’s worth mentioning that XPEC Entertainment is an outsourcing developer, they worked on The Last of Us, this is their first non-browser based non-existing licensed game to hit consoles. The gameplay mechanics in Do Not Fall are simple to understand and the difficulty is constantly increasing and very challenging to master. The local competitive multiplayer is hectic and fast paced, but playing against the bots is not very good. If you like a platforming challenge give this a shot, but do not buy Do Not Fall expecting to find any online multiplayer matches.
– MonsterVine Rating: 3.5 out of 5 – Fair
