Mobsferatu

Platformers can be quite demanding and frustrating, even if you have some experience under your belt. As long as the levels feature a cacophony of well-placed traps and enemies, the challenge alone is enough to keep most fans of the genre engaged for many hours. On the other hand, it never hurts to have an original concept somewhere in there either.

Mobsferatu is a simple jam game driven by a pretty interesting idea, although the concept itself is neither original nor very complex. However, the game somehow manages to captivate you from the first few minutes of gameplay, probably because the mechanics are exciting. On top of that, it’s also quite a challenge to figure out how to avoid most traps.

In essence, the greatest challenge is to react quickly enough in order to stay alive. However, not every mistake is fatal, so there’s room for error most of the time. The whole point is that you control multiple characters at the same time, and you can pick up more of them along the way. Hence, if you happen to miscalculate a jump and end up touching a spiked log, only one or two of the characters in the line are going to die.

Although it sounds pretty demanding in theory, the game requires you to use only two buttons in order to stay alive. One of them allows you to jump, while the other is used to dash forward over short distances. Obviously, some of the obstacles require you to use both, otherwise you won’t be able to get your villagers across. You can also switch directions by pressing the dash button twice, which also comes in handy on a regular basis.

As far as the technical side of things is concerned, the game is obviously pretty basic when it comes to graphics, given the fact that it was developed in only 72 hours. However, it certainly doesn’t look bad, it’s just that the landscape becomes repetitive after a while. On top of that, the controls are responsive and accurate, which is exactly what you want from a reflex-based platformer.

While Mobsferatu probably won’t be a revolution in the gaming industry, it could certainly do well for itself if the developers decided to expand the concept a little bit and add more content. However, you can have tons of fun with the game in its current form as well.