Drink More Glurp
Drink More Glurp is a wacky new game from developers CATASTROPHIC_OVERLOAD, set on a distant planet where aliens are trying to run their own Olympics. Competitors have huge noodle arms, and must use these arms to propel them forward in various events. Sounds simple enough, right? Wrong.
Controls are all kinds of messed up, and admittedly this is intentional. But wow, it sure does make for an absolute rage-inducing nightmare. We’ve played plenty of these types of games in the past, ones that are built with the sole premise of being frustrating but fun. Take games like I Am Bread for example: simple controls, but when put into action require some level of fore-thought (or rapid panic-based button mashing, in my experience). You improve, and learn how to have better control. DGM seems like there’s a whole lot of luck needed too. You control your overgrown appendages independently with the joysticks, which can be pulled down to jump. This requires some pretty consistent timing and judgment, as it would often just bring me to a complete stop as I smashed the arms to the ground or flailed them for a second too long.
The art style is very simple consisting of basic flat shapes and bright colours that work very well with the overall design of the game. You start off with your own little alien that you can customise using a whole bunch of different options such as costumes, different colours and more. This is at least an enjoyable part, as you’re not having to rely on the frustrating arm controls!
I definitely like the idea of Drink More Glurp, whose title focuses on the fictional soft-drink advertised literally everywhere throughout the events, but the execution leaves me frustrated, and bored from going nowhere. The game can be played alone, or with up to 20 players competitively. Whilst this can add an element of fun due to it having a great deal of chance in whether you’ll succeed or not, the fun wears off quickly as everyone gets more and more irritated by the controls, or lack thereof.
Even Allan who, as you may know from previous reviews, is an absolute freak of nature in that he is good at every game he picks up was not good at this. Not even a little. Sure, you get a lucky turn every now and then where it feels magical, but then 20 seconds later in another event and you just cannot replicate that? If it doesn’t feel even slightly consistent, it takes away the enjoyment. And where other games like this have a fun soundtrack to keep you going; a difficulty curve that allows for you to improve; some kind of element that spurs you on to keep trying, this does not. So you give up fast, never looking back.
Playing with other people doesn’t give you the normal hype of party based games either, as we’d hoped that would possibly be the one saving grace here. As mentioned above, you can play with up to 20 people in total, however everyone plays consecutively. Having people go head-to-head would maybe have made things a little more fun as the competitive element would be there and seeing people in real time, pulling ahead of you would add to that. But instead, playing one-by-one, the player is screaming profanities at the screen whilst everyone watching is bored.
In the end, we decided to give Drink More Glurp the Collecting Asylum rating of 5/10. I really want to like it, as I love the look of it, and when you manage to win an event it feels great, but those wins are just so far apart and so unpredictable that it makes me not want to play. If there ever is a patch to tweak the controls to make them a little less purposefully-janky, then I’ll be back with bells on.
Have you played Drink More Glurp yet? What did you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!
- V x
Thank you to Yogscast Games for the Drink More Glurp Nintendo Switch review code!
