Stayin' Alive

"Stayin' Alive!" was made for an short-houred contest under the theme of "disco" and "fire".
In this case, your disco being burning down during the Disco Demolition Night. It is a reference to an historic event and also features collecting vinyls to save them from the hands of punkers and rock fans.

You start out from the disco you own and jam in and things are looking hot. Too hot, in fact, as everything is on fire. You have to dodge flames (or .. some flames) and escape before you will be chased ever after until your disco powers purge any and all evil.
And you may collect stuff on the way, because we love that kind of collection.


Kind boys, would you happen to have seen my lost vinyls?

What follows is a collection of chase and other minigames. Namely a dance and a skating one.

The chase itself - all of this game actually - works around dodging an impossible amount of projectiles. That is not to say it is impossible to finish - it very much and very easily is - but only thanks to your huge amount of life.
Thugs stabbed and clawed at me at least 20 times before I got to the next area, you can stand in flames without much worry and you can skate through barrels and wooden planks with barely a scratch.
It is not as much difficult as it is unfair.

You will still die if you are not careful, but surviving these onslaughts seems both unrealistic and less rewarding than it could be. You cannot aim to "ace" it, you can only aim to somehow get through it all.
Because of this, beating the game felt more like by fluke and diminished any reward the player could have after escaping it all.


Vinyl GET. This row, at least.

The exact controls (jumping) for the skating minigame were beyond me, although I still managed to get through easily. You will need multiple attempts to collect all vinyls, which I find a little bit disheartening. You will aim to get them all, and fail first before you realize you cannot.
And then it is fairly slow-paced so you are not compelled to play more anyway.

The last minigame - a dancing game - is near-impossible to beat. You will rely on your health alone.
You have to react to a written out color - like blue - and then step onto the field of the same color. There will be possible confusion as the letters will be in different colors, often times not matching the color you need.
It is simple and works well at the start, until the speed picks up. You cannot move while the text-box is still visible, and the punishment/flames/failure will procceed immediately afterwards. The only way to do it is to keep mashing random buttons and hope it is the right one, and hope you will move in time still.

Survivng this was based on little skill, and it saps on the fun it could have.

Because on the upside - the ideas of these games are simple and solid. The first round of the dancing game was really fun.
While graphics were no highlight, they were decent enough and the music selection was simply brilliant.

I do enjoy some disco music, and "Disco Inferno" playing in a burning disco is as well chosen as is "I will survive" on the last dance-off.
The cut-out sound of "Disco Inferno" (the vocal part) when picking up vinyls was a little bit annoying, as it breaks with the background music and its vocals seem off.

Nevertheless, using such music in spite of the dreadful surroundings makes for a very enjoable contrast, with both negatives explored and the value of disco for our protagonist emphasized. It is portraying something serious in a less serious manner.

I would have loved the games to be more rewarding, as it would be a fairly enjoyable package.