Dr. Fetus' Mean Meat Machine

Tetris is one of the gaming world's most ingenious concepts, and my own relationship with the Game Boy version in particular has shaped much of me as a player. There are also variants, with the Puyo Puyo games being what this game resembles; two paired symbols fall from the top of the screen and when four of the same colour are linked together they disappear. Dr Fetus' Mean Meat Machine is a puzzle game developed by Team Meat and it is a spinoff of Super Meat Boy and Super Meat Boy Forever. In this game, the big novelty is the addition of an element of traps that complicates the goal of linking the odd characters together. The problem is that the traps can remove what you've already put in place, and if you touch a trap while you're putting the pieces together, you have to start over.

However, the game has fairly generous checkpoints so it's more about getting a couple of "Links" as it is called when you manage to connect four of the same colour. Since this is a spinoff of the Super Meat Boy series, it is of course also ruthlessly difficult at times, and has a similar visual style to the platform games, with fun character designs, catchy music, and a setting that is clear and manageable.

Just like Puyo Puyo, it's basically very simple. There really isn't much more to explain about how it works, so we'll move onto the good and the bad instead. I had quite a bit of fun at first and the realisation that there were over a hundred courses to tackle made me happy. But, after completing about a third of them, I stopped. I simply lost interest and wasn't having much fun.

Although the level of difficulty is high, checkpoints have been added, which is a welcome feature, but there is a small balance problem here and this is that what you have done in previous levels determines how easy or hard future ones will be. In other words, if you have put yourself in a tough spot before the checkpoint saves, it can be virtually impossible to complete the rest of the level because the traps either become larger, more numerous or just ridiculously difficult to overcome, so to restart the level is your only solution. I like most levels when I start them, the traps often feel brutal but I have a plan and it's up to me to make it work. But as new traps appear or the already existing ones become bigger or faster, I often lose interest, especially since it depends so much on what I have accomplished before if I am to complete the level at all.

This unbelievably high level of difficulty goes both ways. Besides often being frustrating, it is also extremely satisfying when you finally pass a level. This is not unique to this game, there are plenty of experiences where the difficulty level is extremely high to give you this feeling when you succeed. The biggest problem here is, for me, the lack of any kind of sense of progress. In other games you kind of progress the story, while here you are "rewarded" with just more and more (and more) levels instead, even if traps change, and become more numerous. This is also applicable to other similar puzzle games, but in those the easier accessibility and a more balanced level of difficulty is an advantage because the frustration is often absent. There is simply a joy to play other games in the genre that the level of difficulty cancels out here.

Another thing that often contributes to frustration is trying to cram too much into a small space. Sometimes we are faced with fairly wide playing fields and it is then easier to have a plan even for the later stages of the level, but sometimes there are far too few squares in width for the amount of traps that appear and then the problem I talked about earlier becomes even more obvious; how you have played up to a certain checkpoint simply determines whether you will even pass the level. Although you can of course restart and do it a little better, it often becomes difficult when the level does not really invite a different style of play just because it is so narrow in width.

However, it should be added that after the first few levels, when I thought I had completely given up on the game, I returned to play it again on several occasions. The classic "just a few more levels", combined with the fact that I was determined to finish the one I left in frustration, shows it holds a grip over the player. All in all, Dr. Fetus' sadistic antics still feel like a decent version of the Puyo Puyo games and it's also quite fun that they still manage to make their own version of a classic puzzle concept.