GREEN Review

GREEN is a platformer which focuses on precision jumping and conjuring your own block platforms in order to traverse rooms.

That isn’t the only use for the blocks, however: they also form your ammo for launching attacks on other square creatures in the game. They can be tactically used to pen enemies into tight-knit spaces too for when you don’t want them interfering with your jumps, or can block hazardous substances from coming into contact with you.

The game is set across fifty levels, and like any well-designed platformer, the challenge steadily increases as more takes on the formula are introduced from start to finish. Well, I say steadily. Mechanics can change out of left field in ways that you’d never expect them to – lava can destroy platforms, and sometimes it manages to do so before you have a chance to reach them, meaning you end up taking a pointless leap of faith towards your doom with no chance to correct yourself, and then have to start the level over. Elsewhere, entire chunks of a platform can come to life as you land on them and then pursue you through the level. GREEN doesn’t allow much room for error – collide with enemies through the slightest of touches and you’re going to be going back to the start of that room.

It’s quite impressive, actually, how much scale the ideas in this game have. Just about everything in the environment presents a threat, and that has a positive effect in terms of putting you on the edge of your seat every time your block jumps off the ground. When enemies, which you become used to simply patrolling platforms back and forth, suddenly start firing blocks back at you it makes for quite the shock and as such discombobulates you into mentally considering most of the mechanics in the game before you start moving through the level.

It’s that level of variation which ups your death rate and therefore extends GREEN into what becomes quite a hefty required playtime in order to make it through every level. And, when you consider that your brain is not only dealing with all this new information for the majority of your playthrough but also about the sensitivity of the jumping controls, this is a game which gives players quite a challenge.

And yes, the jumping is tricky. You can’t pass through your blocks when you jump, so precision is of the essence for the most part, so trying to make your way up narrow shafts is pretty frustrating at times when you need to create stepping-stone blocks and leave enough room to get past them. That was my only real gripe with the GREEN experience, though – and though it looks like a game created on the cheap, the breadth of the game’s ideas are anything but.