Review | Boomerang Fu
With the ongoing COVID pandemic keeping us inside, it’s nice to find a game that gives you a genuine sense of catharsis from the cabin fever we’re all feeling trapped indoors with our families, partners, cats, and shadows. Boomerang Fu does this by letting us absolutely massacre each other in the most Australian way possible: magical boomerangs! From the fantastically named indie developers, Cranky Watermelon, Boomerang Fu is a party game like no other: an outright brutal deathmatch between some of the most adorable little sprites I think I’ve ever seen – which makes it even more sadistic when you MURDER THEM TO DEATH!
[I get a little competitive]
Kung Fu? Overrated.
Shaq Fu? Outdated
Boomerang Fu? Now we’re talking.
Adorably Lethal
The game sees up to six players choosing one of three game modes: Free For All, Team-Up, or Golden Boomerang. The first two are pretty self-explanatory (kill or be killed), but the last one is perhaps the most interesting: it’s somewhere between Capture the Flag and King of the Hill in that you have to grab and hold on to the golden boomerang for a set amount of time to win the round. Of course, while you’re holding onto that boomerang, you instantly become a target and everyone wants to cut your face off with their boomerangs...
It’s a pretty fun experience on the surface and one that certainly seems to reflect the company’s prime objective:
“Our mission is to create cute games that help people connect in a time where we're apart.”
While I love this mission statement from Cranky Watermelon, it’s inherently flawed since only local multiplayer is available in the game. PC users can benefit from Steam’s Remote Play function, but it’s not exactly a simple process to get things set up. When testing the process for ourselves, we struggled to connect multiple players via keyboard input and found that the easiest way to play was to connect to our own devices with a controller each - which is fine if you have them. However, should the host of the game alt+tab out of the game (for whatever reason), this stops the whole game for every player. This really throws a spanner in the works when you go to check Discord and everyone starts yelling at you [me]. What’s more, Cranky Watermelon has shown little interest in including proper online multiplayer functionality in-game, stating:
“We've concentrated our efforts on making the best party game experience we can for when the pandemic is over (or so you can slice and dice whoever you're locked down with right now).”
It’s a bit contradictory in the face of their previous statement, and something I think is preventing a good game from being a great game (especially considering its aim is to “connect people in a time where we’re apart").
Now I know this seems chaotic but… Yes, yes it is.
No Use Crying Over Spilled Milk
The attention to detail in Boomerang Fu is fantastic, and you can see just how much effort has gone into the gameplay, mechanics and sound design. Something that quickly caught my attention was how the character death sounds reflect the objects themselves (for example, the coffee mug makes a distinct shattering noise when it dies). You might think this an obvious thing to do, but it’s all too easy for emerging indie games developers to save time and money by using generic sounds across the board. These little things might seem quaint, but add up and come together to really elevate the player experience.
Unfortunately, as much as I love the sweet and plushy design of the characters, the game quickly loses its novelty. There are only three game modes at the time of writing, and they can get rather samey. This is only exacerbated by the number of rounds the game wants you to play in order to win in a default match ). Alongside that, the variety of maps is a double-edged sword, with some more suited to larger groups than others. If you’re playing with five other people, getting stuck with one of the smaller maps means the entire round becomes a case of “who can mash slash the quickest", and, while chaotic fun the first time or two, this quickly grows frustrating and the round is often over before it can begin.
Who needs the Snyder Cut when this is the showdown we’ve all been waiting for.
You’re Fooling No One
Players can increase their advantage in the brawl by grabbing power-ups in-game – running the gambit between everything from “telekinesis” to “bamboozlement”. The disguise power-up is a great idea and can add a whole other dimension to the game by making you question everything around you. However, this is only effective if your opponents can’t see you, and that rarely (if ever) happens since the overhead camera keeps every player in the frame as much as possible.
All-in-all, Boomerang Fu is a great little party piece. It’s heaps of fun in short bursts, the sprites are adorable, and the mechanics are, for the most part, well-crafted. While there’s nothing inherently bad about the game, it feels a little light on content. I’d really like to see more development from Cranky Watermelon, especially to introduce proper online multiplayer for players – without having to go through the awkward and inconsistent rigmarole of Steam Remote Play. All that being said, for the money you pay, Boomerang Fu is a great way to put a smile on your face (if you’ve got the people to play it with).
