Platformer · 2016 · No Brakes Games · local · online
Human: Fall Flat
Two wobbly rubber figures solve puzzles in dreamlike landscapes — though the falling off takes up the larger share.
What it is about
You control two nameless figures made of soft rubber who feel as though somebody forgot their bones. Walking works, grabbing works, and jumping always looks like an accident. That is not a flaw, it is the point.
The levels are floating dreamscapes: a castle, a mine, a harbour, a fairground. Each is strewn with levers, crates, ropes and vehicles, and the way up usually only appears once you haul each other up or push something together.
You cannot die. If one of you falls, they reappear at the last checkpoint moments later — which sets the tone for the whole game: try, fail, laugh, carry on. The Steam Workshop adds thousands of player-built levels on top.
Our verdict for couples
The controls are broken on purpose: your figure grabs with each arm separately, and even pulling yourself up over a ledge looks like an accident. That is exactly why it works with people who otherwise never touch a controller — you cannot do anything wrong here because everything goes wrong anyway, and falling costs nothing. Playing as a pair, half your time goes on hauling the other one up to a spot where they have already slipped off ten times. Anyone expecting firm puzzle chains and clear goals, though, will have had enough of the clowning after three evenings.
Pros
- Instantly understandable, even with no gaming experience
- Over Remote Play one copy covers distance too
- Free levels have kept arriving for years
Cons
- The puzzles start repeating after a while
- The deliberately awkward controls are not for everyone
- No crossplay between platforms
Suitable from
Casual
- Conflict potential
- Spirited
- Cosiness
- Cosy
- When you can stop
- After 15 minutes
- How long it lasts
- 5–15 hours
What other co-op fans say
The community is strikingly good-natured: a great many people write briefly that they laughed, and name in the same sentence the person they played with. What gets praised is how quickly you are in, the many added levels and the Workshop. Two objections recur — the puzzles start repeating, and it gets funnier in a group than with two. For a couple that means: excellent for a handful of evenings, less so as a standing fixture.
- “The game is filled with Fun and Crazy Levels that will make you laugh out loud when you play with your friends.”
- “It supports a variety of playstyles and the controls feel like you are controlling a giant unwieldly clay doll”
- “fun with friends for a couple rounds but then the maps and puzzles get redundant”
Summarised by machine from 60 Steam reviews, not written by our editors. The quotes appear verbatim in those reviews.
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