[h1] DANCING ON PAINTED BONES [/h1]
[b] P. S. If you have difficulties in the walktrough, this guide will be very useful: [/b]
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3561496240
Sketch! Run! is a game where you take care of a tiny character drawn with a pencil. Your task is to help him reach the finish line by drawing springs and destroying blocks with the same pencil you control. Sounds simple and minimalist, right? But if you thought the first part of “Gulman” was just a random slideshow of images and a silly story from a seven-year-old, Sketch! Run! raises the absurdity among indie games to a whole new level.
The main problem with the game is that it’s simply unfinished. There are 82 levels in total, divided into five-plus 'seasons' (20 levels each), but the game was released on March 31, 2017, and hasn’t been updated since—never leaving early access. In the fifth season, only two levels remain (and humorously, the second and last one is completely impossible)! After the main 2D game, everything suddenly switches to 3D, and neither the controls nor the character’s behavior can be managed.
The progression system also raises some questions. You can finish a level with gold, silver, bronze, or no rating at all, but it's totally unclear what actually earns you these rewards. Each level gives you three lives, and you can shoot and draw springs as much as you want—there's no timer. So again—why can you finish one level with just one life and get gold, but in another, just stumbling once without any visible damage to your character earns you bronze?
Everything is really sloppy. The character constantly gets stuck in blue blocks and "trips" on moving platforms. The only truly deadly obstacles in the game are purple erasers and drops of water (sometimes spikes), while collisions with skulls and other static objects either just stop the character or remove one of your three lives. And the textures are super pixelated and messily cut, like they were done in Paint. The overall design is a whole other story, probably the main trashy charm of this project.
And alright, the visuals are all done in rough sketchy lines, with matching 'drawing' and eraser sounds when you get hit or respawn. But in the background of the levels, random photos keep flashing—sometimes of animals, sometimes of landmarks from all over the world, with text in a Microsoft Word font. It doesn't just make it hard to focus on the obstacles, it totally throws you off. Bots would probably say it's 'confusing,' but normal people would just ask, 'What were the creators smoking?!'
The ridiculous sound effects just complete the whole absurdity. And sure, those weird, totally out-of-place pictures, where the Sydney Opera House can sit right next to Nagorno-Karabakh on the same level, are one thing, but when Christmas music starts playing, then stereotypical Italian or Arabic 'funny' music kicks in—you just get a headache and feel like hysterically laughing and banging your head on the table.
Overall, Sketch! Run! is a half-baked mess that only gives out Steam cards. There's really no point in backing this dead, terrible idea—especially spending around 2.5-3 hours to get through it.
[h3] P. S. 2x. Did you like the review or my profile? Drop a Steam reward for the review. Thanks to your support, I don't lose the point of playing and writing reviews! [/h3]
