The author appears to have the maturity of a high school sophomore, but wow does that game frighten me, in a Super Meat Boy way. Forget Microsoft, do a Kickstarter to raise funds to hire a real artist and build some kind of story around the game, then publish it for PC and Mac (on Steam if you can - good luck with that meeting). If you're successful there, the publishers will come calling.
The game mechanic is clearly there, but it needs a story and style. Again, Super Meat Boy has the "ungodly hard" thing down, but without the distinctive art direction and slightly disturbing story, would it have been as big of a success? I suspect not.
One thing that SMB did really, really well was provided a very slick learning curve. Every level provided you with techniques that, while learned through repetition, were applicable in future levels and scenarios. Every new mechanic was introduced sparingly at first, but then compounded upon by introducing new quirks to the formula you had already learned.
I think that's what made SMB such a solid game; not the difficulty, but the way the game presented you with that difficulty.
(Also, I'm in general agreement with others about the presentation of this article. It felt like the author was trying too hard to act like a college bro. I will admit, however, that I liked the bit with the monkey.)
> Super Meat Boy has the "ungodly hard" thing down
SMB is very playable and does a lot to mitigate its difficulty. You can find much harder platformers out there. An example is IWBTG (http://kayin.pyoko.org/iwbtg/) whose creator also designed some of the bonus levels for SMB.
I was totally expecting this article to be about IWBTG.
The thing about Super Meat Boy is that it's JUST A BIT harder than you can do normally, but just a bit easier than you can deal with at your very best. So it makes you want to win.
YES. Mega Man 9 is another great example of this. Both games get incredibly difficult, but only so difficult that one's inability to complete a level is their own fault, not the result of any "unfairness" on the part of the level designers. It's too hard, then you get better, then you win. That's how you make a great game, and SMB does it to a T.
The game mechanic is clearly there, but it needs a story and style. Again, Super Meat Boy has the "ungodly hard" thing down, but without the distinctive art direction and slightly disturbing story, would it have been as big of a success? I suspect not.