This game is a real stinker
I didn’t want to review Tales From the Arcade: Fartmania. The launch trailer that was sent over to see the gameplay made the project seem like it was a combination of Flappy Bird and Angry Birds, but just with farts. But I did it anyways. I reviewed it. And I can’t say that I enjoyed a single second of my time.
The game focuses on a farting pig trying to make his way up into the stratosphere, through spiky obstacles and a boss fight or two. Movement upward is done by launching a toot and aiming, utilizing a light amount of momentum physics because, well, farts have physics I guess. It’s just point, and fart, and fly and fall. Hitting any nasty obstacle sends the pig back down until it lands on a platform, which can often be screens and screens of distance. When that happens near the end of a maze-like zone of spikes and we have to make it alllll the way back up try after try it gets very tedious very quick. It’s downright frustrating and the opposite of fun. I don’t want to do it once let along 7 times let alone 17. It’s also very repetitive, because even though the aesthetics of the game aren’t too bad it just feels like nothing changes. Even the boss fights (simplistic fart battles against UFOs) are simplistic and the same. It’s bad design and it’s bad gameplay, and it’s the least enjoyable thing that I could put into my Nintendo Switch. I do not recommend it.
But hear me out, this is where I need to talk about something.
I like to check out projects by small teams and see how they’re growing as studios. I like to see how developers are learning, and what they’re learning from. The team behind Fartmania isn’t giant. This game is essentially a learning experience for them. Can we use the tutorial built into Unity or Godot (or whatever software they used), change the assets, and release it? Can we make a basic game and put it on the platforms? Yes. Why not? Every video game release doesn’t need to a be a banger. No one needs to spend a ton of (or any) money on it. Sometimes it’s worth it to just put something out there and learn about what works, what doesn’t work and what the process is to get something better the next time (or two). I feel like Fartmania, as unenjoyable of a game as it is, is actually doing some good for the dev team because it’s that point in the process that many, many people who are interested in games don’t ever make it to.
So yeah, don’t play this game. Or maybe do, if it’s down to 99 cents or free at some point. You won’t like it more than 5 minutes because that’s all it takes for an engine tutorial to become a game. But for the developers this kind of stuff is interesting to see the response to. Maybe in 2-3 years, once they’ve learned and kept working on ideas, we’ll be seeing My Next Games launch a Hollow Knight level of a project.
Or maybe we won’t. Who knows. It could all just be a wet fart, like this game.
This review is based on a Nintendo Switch eShop code sent to SideQuesting by the publisher. It originally appeared on the October 29, 2024 episode of The SideQuest. Images and video courtesy the publisher.
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