Nuts & Milk (1983)

Look: 9/10 Wow, so many of the graphics gave me Mario vibes (and Kirby... my brother thought it was Kirby at first ha). Like the green tubes on top here (well, unfortunately, I finished the first level cuz I was having too much fun, so here's some yellow tubes... but I swear there were green ones too lol... I wound up getting an image of the green tubes below when I re-cycled to Round 1)

Very impressive. Reminds me of its contemporary arcade platformers' looks, as well as the upcoming NES era I'm so excited for. Eventually the look is undeniably repetitive but it's still cute and great colors.

Sound: 8/10 The era is coming! Videogame music that I truly engage with as playful or cute or intense or sentimental.

Play: 8/10 Some of the mechanics were goofy like it was hard to figure out what was to be climbed, when and how to jump, etc. Collision masks weren't perfect.. and the walk-off-the-edge mechanic was super sloppy to tell the game when to differentiate simply step down vs have some velocity to the drop-down.. resulted in a bunch of tedious moments. But here I am, pushing through level after level on a 2nd day of playing. So far, tho on the first night I only got to the third "round" (level), I think this will be a streamable game because it's actually playable. I'll probly have to use savestates at the start of levels once I'm down to one life, to make it enjoyable to watch, but it's gameplay I can actually engage with like Flicky and Moon Patrol and Crash 3 Warped, which made them fun to stream. The pathfinding of the enemies was frustrating and difficult-seeming at first, but was fun to learn over time. I suppose the same could be said of a lot of the mechanics I was frustrated with during the first 20 rounds. Fortunately, the game has a good difficulty progression that makes learning all those quirks and frustrating mechanics doable.

Feel: 9/10 Super cute the way you fall to your side and fumble for a second when fall from a great height. Better than the arbitrary fall! Still a slight punishment, but more fun to be able to keep moving after! You jump up ha. Cute is definitely the word for the game overall. Giving me yet-to-come Kirby and Mario vibes. Even the fireballs have the Mario vibe ha. Plus, the importance of a third-party game (Hudson Soft, no less) for the Famicom. I love how short and fast-paced the levels are--I kept feeling like I was accomplishing something and the difficulty was relatively manageable (relative to early microcomputer platformers).

Attachment: 9/10 The mechanics of the trampline high-jumps, the inability to jump when on a climbing rope, and the inability to move mid-jump all were big disappointments that took away from the game (even as I played round after round heh... like usual for any halfway-decent early platformer). Before I knew it, I was half way through the game. This has a very pick-up-and-play with a reasonable difficulty progression that makes me wanna show my brothers and others by just having them pick it up and try it themselves. Seems like a fun game to play as a group. It's a good sign of a game when I didn't even realize I beat it (I was listening to my friend workless' live chat/interview with a guy from Manitoba, and was playing and didn't even realize I was on Round 50 ha) all of a sudden woops, this screen

Back to square one, with a score I am proud of. Dare I say it was almost too easy?? Ha. I should bite my tongue. It was fun, challenging enough, and maybe it increases in difficulty when you start back at the beginning (I never love the re-cycling feature for levels, but at least there was the set number of 50 that was doable). Maybe I'm just getting better at gaming from, well, gaming more ha.

I know I'll be coming back to this! A game to show others and replay when I wanna feel good at gaming again lol

Completion: All 50 Rounds, Score 525,400 Playtime: ~2 hours