Pressured

You know, there are a lot of really good games waiting to be Greenlit on Steam. So it’s a bit shocking to me that Pressured got through, because (1) PC is completely the wrong platform for it. It would be right at home on iPad. And (2) this is one seriously boring game. There’s a grid of twelve monitors that cycle through different numbers. You have a target number which you must get to by clicking the numbers on the screen until they add up to it. The last number used to hit the target becomes a bomb. When you hit the target five times, you move onto the next stage. And that’s pretty much it.

This won’t be my longest review, because I don’t have a lot to say about Pressured. It’s a competently made game. Not ambitious in its art style. The whole “indie minimalism” thing is getting out of hand. So many games these days are devoid of personality, and it makes gaming almost exhausting. It’s not novel or cute anymore. Minimalism now reminds me of Kristen Stewart. An actress so utterly devoid of talent, personality, or charisma that it leads me to assume she must be giving the best head the casting couch has ever seen for her career to still exist. You indies are Kristen Stewarting your games. STOP IT!!

This game bored me so bad I think I might have PTSD from it. Just looking at this screen shot made me reach for the power button on my PC.

I have nothing against math-based puzzles. I was hooked on Sudoku for a while. But as a game, Pressured just plain doesn’t work for me. It feels more like a bonus round for a larger game that’s been given a full release. I really have no other complaints about it. I don’t even think I could offer any tips to improve the concept, since the foundation alone has all the earmarks of a digital sleeping pill. There’s a lot of fans for Pressured out there, and I’m sure the usual gang of idiots will demand I bestow my Seal of Approval on it because it’s a competent game that didn’t cause birds to fall dead out of the sky. But really, I’ve done nearly 500 reviews and the hour I spent with pressured is the most agonizing one I’ve had ever at Indie Gamer Chick. I’ve played incompetently made games and at least they gave me something to talk about. Pressured bored me AND gave me nothing to work with. I can nit-pick that there’s no leaderboards local or online, but I wouldn’t want to challenge for them anyway. The bland visuals and the dull gameplay just absolutely walloped me into a coma. I’m not picking on Flump Studios. They made Pester, which is one of the only shmups I’ve reviewed that scored my Seal of Approval and a Leaderboard ranking. I think the difference between this and Pester is Pester feels like a lot of time and effort went into it. Pressured looks and feels like one of those games people make in 48 hours at a Game Jam. And no, my dislike of this has nothing to do with the whole “girls suck at math thing.” I’m awesome at math. Well, at least my accountant is, but I pay him so that totally counts for me.

Pressured was developed by Flump Studios
Point of Purchase: Steam

$2.39 (normally priced $2.99) whined “nobody said there would be math” in the making of this review.