Mr. Bree+

This game starts out alot like other games in the genre, learn to walk, jump and run to name a few. The levels become ever more devious as you progress but are never hard for the wrong reasons. One cool mechanic is the scenery/mood change after you die alot. And you will be dying alot. One tip, look carefully ahead of you for any traps that might not be easily apparent. The music is very good and sets the mood nicely for each set of levels. The scenery and backgrounds for each level are beautifully done and are pleasant on the eyes. The hero moves at a slow pace to begin with but before long you are running for your life from traps and ducking and dodging with the best of em. In each level a collectible can be found and in alot of cases, a new power is needed so collecting it must be done later. All in all the game offers value at and above the current price. It has its charm and challenges and will have you cursing every god you can name at times but as always, overcoming the challenges is its own reward. For what the game is and offers, it executes perfectly in every aspect and any platformer fan out there should rise to the challenge.

the other reviews are already very informative... i just want to add, that it is very playble and precise with keyboard too. hard, but not impossible and definitely aimed for speedrunning. could work well for the next GDQ (www.gamesdonequick.com)! the price is so low, that you can´t go wrong if you like platformers. sidenote about the dev... he was shot in April 2015 @25! RIP! [i]i think it´s a good idea to support his family by buying the game.[/i]

Brutal platformers are basically small levels with tricky jumps and an emphasis on speed. Mr. Bree+ delivers 60 levels of gameplay, but with a far more forgiving difficulty curve than many of its competitors. The concept is simple, you play as the titular character, running and jumping through 60 progressively more difficult levels. As you waltz through the early stages, you will collect various abilities to aid you such as wall jumping, double jumping, ducking and sprinting. Each level also has a bonus collectible item to find which is usually in a tough to reach spot. Collecting enough of these unlocks the more difficult stages later. Mr. Bree+ is best described as a mashup between Super Meat Boy and Toki Tori. There is less of a focus on speed and momentum, allowing you to take your time and work out the best way to deal with a particular problem. It also has frequent checkpoints so you don’t have to replay the level from the start if you should die. This makes completing the game considerably easier than Super Meat Boy, by borrowing the reduced difficulty, slower pace and level design from Toki Tori. The levels themselves usually involve avoiding spikes, either on the floor, walls or flying through the air. Levels also contain camouflaged traps such as pits or nets that fall from the ceiling, as well plenty of moving platforms. Aside from the core stages, the game packs a plethora of achievements which involve collecting items, completing stages within a time limit and without dying, as well as a few pointless ones such as watching the end credits all the way through. In general, they do add an extra challenge if you found the main game too easy. The game doesn’t control nearly as smoothly as games like the aforementioned Super Meat Boy, or others like They Bleed Pixels. This is likely down to the slower pace, but most certainly a lack of polish on the way Mr. Bree handles. For example, since double jump and wall jump are the same button, he often doesn’t quite know which one to do. Add to this occasional game freezes, Windows 8 compatibility issues and odd bugs like starting a level lodged inside a wall, or a gate not triggered open properly if you press the switch in a certain way, you have a disappointing number of annoying bugs to deal with as well, albeit rarely. These should be relatively easy to fix, but no word as of writing on an update. Mr. Bree+ has a plot, but the developers really tried too hard and got a little too ambitious (Slavery? Really?). The sorts of emotions they try to convey simply do not hit home for several reasons. For starters, the game is just too simplistic for any sort of serious storyline to be taken seriously. Secondly, a lot of the text appears at the bottom of the screen during the game, most of it is missed because you’re too busy concentrating on actually staying alive, the text also disappears so fast that you wouldn’t be able to read it anyway. Even if you did get the chance to read it, you will find many grammar and spelling errors and just bad English in general. The visuals are a mixed bag, with some elements shining while others drag the experience down to the point where it affects the gameplay itself. For starters, the character animation, for a budget title, is simply wonderful. The character sprites are fully animated, along with impressive stylised artwork in the cutscenes. Level design assets are less impressive, with most of them being static and having little variation or consideration for making something aesthetically pleasing to look at. Lastly, the biggest flaw with the graphics by far is that the framerate is locked to 30FPS, which is an absolute travesty for this genre of game. Audio also has its ups and downs. What few sound effects there are come through as mundane and generic, as well as having little variation despite being used repeatedly. On the other hand, the soundtrack is awesome, I mean REALLY awesome. The soundtrack alone is worth the asking price for this game, in my opinion. The soundtrack is not available through Steam, but can be found on Bandcamp for $1. In summary, Mr. Bree+ is an inexpensive introduction to this particular platforming sub-genre. The budget price is justified by the various quality issues, but is fully competent at what it does and the effort that has been put into the presentation shines through in many aspects. A delicious pork chop, even if it does get stuck in your teeth on the way down. Pros: ~Cheap ~Balanced and steady difficulty curve ~Good visual presentation for a budget game ~Great soundtrack ~Plenty of content, good replayability value Cons: ~Several unnecessary and annoying bugs, glitches, freezes ~Framerate locked to 30FPS ~Disappointing boss fights ~Embarrassingly bad plot

Reminiscent of Super Meat Boy in its ambience and brutal traps, this little platformer proves itself worthy of those who enjoy a short but fun challenge. This, coupled with an astonishing soundtrack, make this game a must for the genre-lovers considering its current price. The only downside is the current lack of workshop content; it would be nice to see user-created levels in the near future to lengthen even more the game experience. Note that at the time of writing this review, I've roughly completed about 1/3 of the game. In no way does my playtime reflect the actual duration of this game. Considering the levels get more and more complicated (NOTE: The difficulty curve in this game is pretty good), I assume it will last between 2:30 and 3:30 hours. EDIT: I am about to finish this game, only about 10 levels left including a couple special levels, and still lots of achievements to earn. I'd say my estimation of a little more than 2:30h was kind of accurate. The difficulty in the final levels is still a bit challenging, though I find that I may struggle with a level but then complete the next one in just one go. However, the game is still as fresh as when I bought it, and I am enjoying every second of frustration and satisfaction of it.

I highly recommend this game to every 2D platformer enthusiast who loves a challenge, the games has pleasant aesthetics, great musical score and responsive controls.

[quote] Platformer masterpiece [h1]It's about:[/h1] [list] [*] piggy Mr. Bree who's escaping from his captives; [*] jumping a lot; [*] collecting special "bad memories" to get access to locked levels for better story understanding; [*] collecting special "good memories" which provide additional skills: jump, crouch, run, double jump. [/list] [h1]Why you should play this:[/h1] [list] [*] you like platformer-games and don't mind to go through some amounts of failed attempts; [*] simple, but nice story and great soundtrack; [*] unlike in many other platformers here you truly develop your character obtaining new skills (RPG-light, hmm... very light) and not just simply running through the same levels; [*] level-design: it truly changes from level to level and it always different (no copy/past parts), adopted for new piggy's skills and looks comprehensive and simple at the same time, some of the levels have secret places; [*] game encourages you to get back to previous levels after you got new skill for collecting "bad memories" - you might find that with new skills previous levels feel and play in other ways; [*] right approach to the difficulty: there's no fights for 'right' microsecond when you need to push the button, here you need to be precise, accurate and fast with controls, but at the same time do everything in cold blood; [*] on some levels things looks impossible to do, but that's wrong impression: after the most suicide and difficult double-jump the more suicide double-triple-wall jump follows and this feels amazing; [*] check-points on most of the levels. [/list] [h1]Why you may not like it:[/h1] [list] [*] it's truly hardcore: you need to be mentally prepared for constant failures - one wrong step and you must start over again (or start from checkpoint); [*] colour of the level's background is changing depending on amount of failures: so, one of them is deeply red and it becomes difficult to differentiate level's enviroment - you might not see properly traps, spikes and etc.; [*] no option to regulate the volume: you can only turn music on or turn it off, the same about sounds - very strange approach in 2015, soundtrack is very nice, but still...; [*] it's not intuitively clear how to fight with the first boss. [/list] [i]Unique platformer game with great amount of fun for a very modest price. The weapon of your choice if you desperately looking for challenge.[/i] P.S. Gamepad is [b]strongly[/b] recommended. [/quote]

For those wondering, the majority of my listed playtime was spent idling for cards. I've actually beaten the original Flash incarnation of this game before, so this is less a review and more of a comparison/series of general thoughts. Mr. Bree was, and still is, an enjoyable cartoon platformer. Through a series of 60 levels, you'll control the titular pig as he runs and jumps through a series of increasingly-difficult locations, ranging from simple forests to abattoirs and everything in-between. I never got the sense that this was as difficult as any of the Meat Boy games, as there seemed to be a lot of leeway in difficulty - I never felt it was impossible to complete a stage, and the levels feel like they were designed to reward people who practiced the wall-jumping/double-jumping and wanted to speedrun them. Much like Meat Boy, though, the story is near-irrelevant fluff meant to tie certain worlds together. The whole pretext of the story is a pig waking up with amnesia after escaping from a slaver, and he has forgotten most of his basic skills. I felt that this concept (of having to learn your abilities) could have been taken a lot further. While there are opportunities to go back to earlier levels and get items with unlocked abilities, the levels themselves never really play up the fact that you're limited in mobility for a certain stretch of time. Contrast that to something like Don't Move, which rewards you based on trying and/or failing to increase your mobility or set of abilities. Once you unlock double-jumping, most of the levels become a breeze and there's no real threat to any of the obstacles. Still, I found it to be an enjoyable romp, and for the price point (usually around $3, but less during sales), you could do a whole lot worse.

Mr. Bree plus deceived me with it's cute art style into believing it might be a fun little platforming adventure. It actually tries to be somewhere between Super Meatboy and an unfair platformer. For me it is rather an unfair (albeit beatable) one because of bad controls and communication. The game forces controller users to use the analog stick for movenment controls where a directional pad would feel more appropriate. Traps are hard to see and often require sheer luck. New mechanics are introduced in a conterintuitive manner - the wall jump for example is aquired in in a tight space with no way to try out immediatly. My "favourite" aspect of the game is a red tint that appears when you start to many times on a level. It makes it even harder to see traps dangers and, well, anything.

You are a pig named Mr. Bree. You've been through something terrible that you don't quite remember and all you want to do is get home to see your family. Thus, you begin your platforming adventure through the forest. First, the good: The art style is very nice and the music is pretty good as well. Checkpoints are provided for most levels, so you can pass even the harder levels without too much difficulty. These can be turned off when you unlock hardcore mode. There are collectibles to find that unlock extra levels and the rest of the story. The level design is nice for the most part. The bad: The game is riddled with bugs. The game crashes and freezes randomly, has poor controller support, and environments that blend together and make it hard to distinguish foreground and background. Wall jumping feels janky and the controls in general do not feel tight enough to be in a 'hardcore-style' platformer. There's also a mechanic where the time of day changes each time you die in a level. Some of the lighting schemes for certain times of day render traps and pitfalls nearly invisible, making levels that you are already having trouble with even harder simply because you can't see anything. For $2.99, I didn't expect a lot from the game. It feels like there is a decent platformer hiding somewhere beneath the bugs and issues and I think I could recommend it if some things got fixed. As it is, I'd rather just play Super Meat Boy.

Mr. Bree is just another pig trying to make it in a 2D platformer world. Despite his inability to survive even the slightest contact with a sharp object, he continues again and again until he makes it home. Honestly, I don't care much for Super Meat Boy and the sub-genre it helped spawn. I don't fault the way those games are designed, it's just a personal preference. Short & brutally hard games just aren't my thing. I still managed to get most of the way through Mr. Bree+. I guess I should explain why. Relatively-speaking, this is a pretty easy game. The deaths are constant, but the checkpoints are frequent. The music is also really good. Porcine protags are few and far between, so this game gets points for that. At the moment the only other game I can think of is Muchi Muchi Pork. This is a 2D shooter about pig-girls who ride flying bicycles, while fighting evil*. Anyway, this is a game that's actually rather pleasant, despite Bree's aptitude for exploding. His constant internal monologuing makes him a bit pretentious as well, so half the time I feel like his deaths are deserving. There are a decent amount of stages, the rare collectible, and the controls are suitable enough. There's even a hardcore difficulty and you're constantly challenged to beat your best times. However, Mr. Bree+ is held back from potential greatness due to a number of issues: Poor frame-rate - It goes without saying that a platformer should be 60 fps. Mr. Bree+ is 30? Less than 30? More than 30? Whatever, it's not good enough. This lack of frames translates to missed jumps, which results in shredded pork** Flying objects are also more difficult to dodge, which is the reason why I didn't beat the other boss. There are two of them, one at the end of the forest, the other at the end of the slaughterhouse. BIG hit-box - The difference between Mr. Bree and Mr. Breesket can sometimes be attributed to his large hit-box. It's kinda hilarious really, because even sharp objects that touch his cape will kill him. I figure that this game can be improved, if it accounted for bacon-saving close shaves. The lousy boss-fights - The thing about bosses, is that any issues with the game tend to culminate at these exact moments. This evil warthog is beaten by dropping a box on his head a few times. Getting there is a pain. Before he each attack he has a little code-word, which clues you in on what he's going to do next. The thing is, you won't know the first time around, which leads to guaranteed deaths. This might have been alleviated if the hit-box and frame-rate were improved. The other (slaughterhouse) boss forces you to dodge flying spikes while wall-sliding. It was at this point I surrended. In my opinion, both bosses could have been dumped in exchange for some new stages, or a better finale. Maybe Bree could attempt to escape giant meat-grinder/tank, or parachute from a butcher's flying fortress while dodging buzz-saws, I don't know. Fixing the frame-rate/hit-box issues is probably a lot simpler, and would leave me less of an excuse for being a quitter. Mr. Bree+ isn't a bad game. Even for a guy like myself who thinks spikes should belong in pits and not walls, ceilings, or in the atmosphere. Aside from a frustrating finale it's a decent enough game to jump through. Give it a go, you might not regret it. *If you guessed that Muchi Muchi Pork is a Japanese game. Congrats!....You don't get a prize. **Mmm...shredded pork.