For the most part, mechanics in video games are getting more and more complicated, so it’s really nice to see a developer go back to basics and build something using the things that were common in the early days of home gaming. Mr Figs is a game that does just that. 

Mr Figs is a top-down action/puzzle game that takes inspiration from Bomberman and other games of the same ilk. Rather than focus on throwing complicated mechanics at you and forcing practice to get better at the mechanics, Mr Figs forces you to admit that every death is the result of your own lack of planning. 

Nobody saw that, right?

The mechanics in Mr Figs are straightforward. You run through maze-like levels, use rocks to fill holes or press buttons, and use bombs to remove other rocks or obstacles from your path. Enemies can’t be touched lest you have a death wish, and there are things within the environment that are also capable of wiping you out. Your task is two-fold: Find videotapes and make it to the stairs at the end of a level in one piece. 

But as they say, even the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry. In Mr Figs, I’d argue that ‘often’ should be changed to ‘always’. 

Pretty much everything in Mr Figs can and likely will kill you. Whether you touch some spikes, fall in a hole, get impaled by an arrow, or accidentally stand in the way of your own bomb, you’re going to die a humiliating death at some point that could have been avoided if you’d slowed down and planned ahead. 

Perhaps the most embarrassing deaths of all are those you enter into willingly when you realize that you cannot complete a level thanks to your own lack of forethought. Got a rock stuck in a corner when you need to be able to get behind it so you can push? Well, you’ve no choice but to start again. 

Thankfully, this is a one-player game. Nobody can see your shame. 

Secrets and ‘aha!’ moments

The demo of Mr Figs contains thirty levels to complete within the first of four areas that will eventually be within the game. That’s a total of 120 basic levels in the full game when it gets released, plus challenge rooms and bosses that you’ll need to face off against. That’s pretty impressive, considering this is all down to the efforts of a single developer, Joe Reynolds, aka The Good Game Factory.

Some of the levels have secrets attached to them, denoted by a hole in the wall where a brick would otherwise be. If you see a missing brick, walking into that piece of wall will reveal a new section of the level for you to explore, and there are usually good things to be found in those areas. 

The difficulty takes a sharp upward curve as you descend through the levels of Mr Figs, and you’ll end up learning some lessons in survival very quickly as well. Everything you learn in a previous level can be taken forward into the ones after, and you’ll slowly begin to recognize patterns almost instinctively. 

You’ll probably still die a lot if you get impatient, though. 

Mr Figs is currently under development and doesn’t have a release date for the full game just yet. A demo was released through Steam on July 21 and I highly recommend you go and give it a try if you like puzzle games or want something straightforward to sink hours into.