Legend of Needs

The first thing that hits you with this game is the music, more precisely the title music, it's pretty much clown car on speed which is indeed as wacky as it sounds and I believe is meant to convey the first impression of slapstick comedy. Not my favourite of the comedic arts but perhaps I shouldn't read too much into the first few moments before the game itself has begun.

The game opens and we find ourselves in a mercantile endeavour. The multi-dimensional shipping corporation Needs, a name which I believe could easily spawn an essay in its own right, is owned and run by Cheryl, not exactly a name to inspire either confidence or fear but as the developer states the game is modelled on his own workplace I'm going to assume that's the name of his boss.

So Cheryl, ever after a bigger profit has turned one of her workers, who just happens to also be her daughter, Samantha into a virtual slave, demanding more and more of her and expecting her to be constantly on the clock. Samantha is a dogged go-getter and is managing to succeed in the face of an overwhelming workload but she has a jealous and scheming co-worker to contend with, Molly who wishes to rise to the rank of vice-president in the company and sees foiling and sabotaging Samantha's efforts as a way to ensure that ambition.


Methinks it's not a unionised workplace.

Still as the game begins Samantha has no idea that she is being sabotaged and she soldiers on, seeking to find all the shipments of goods that have mysteriously been mislaid or misdirected. The game is set as a puzzle piece, not an RPG, there are no battles, no swords or armour to equip, and no levels. It's a case of collecting small multicoloured orbs which one assumes initially are the missing shipments but actually turn out to be money, and dodging the movements of some onscreen enemies. Contact with them robs you of half your health so two encounters throws you out of the level you are traversing and sends you back to the beginning with your collected money still intact but the requirement to pass through the level again in order to proceed.

Along the way you find small jars called, and I kid you not, a Mcglerkin Gerkin Swt Kent Jar. I believe this is a strange reference to McLaren's sweet gherkins, a Canadian delicacy which do indeed come in jars. This miraculous condiment appears to be a one shot get out of jail free card, or perhaps more accurately a personal shield since they take the one shot damage from an enemy encounter and allow you to continue on your quest.

Saving is of course restricted to the world map however it is via designated save spots which is a little annoying. Saving within some levels is also oddly allowed at certain points with the aid of a mysterious helpful figure called Deb W, one assumes an in-joke for the developer. I would have appreciated being able to save after each level so as to avoid the repetition of one that has already been conquered simply because the next one was a little more difficult to assail and I did not have the real world time available to attempt it.

On you travel through level after level with the occasional town to stop in to rest, save and on occasional gather some information. You also run across both your Mother, who acts just like one of the nameless fiends that are attacking you, except she actually berates you for your lack of work ethic as she throws you off the level, and a kindly older lady called Frances who is guarding the stolen shipments and gives them to you once you manage to reach her. She is somewhere on each level, though finding and reaching her can sometimes be a little problematic in the maze-like levels.


What the?

In addition Frances can also be found hiding on each of the world maps, protecting yet another shipment, you'll need to find at least one of these secret caches since in order to complete the game with the good ending, where Samantha is triumphant and Molly defeated and everyone goes to Burger King, you'll need to bring in at least 28 shipments, and there are only 27 levels in the game.

These levels are spread throughout multiple worlds, each ending with a castle. The doors to the castle will only open and transport you to the next world if you have a minimum number of shipments with you. However that number is set deceptively low, so that you can pass through all the doors from each of the worlds and trap yourself in the last world without the opportunity to gain the required number of shipments to complete the game. It is advisable to save in multiple spots so that if this does occur you can revert to an earlier world and hunt down the shipments you missed, or simply don't progress unit you have retrieved one from each level and the world in general which will ensure success, much to Molly's disgust.


Jokes on you, I got 29!

Each level becomes progressively harder with more enemy encounters, and a change in the behaviour of enemies from simply patrolling a set path to random movement to actually chasing you, obstacles to jump over, landscape to rearrange to allow for passage, and environmental factors. However it does reach a saturation point where all the logical upward progression has been made and the developer has begun to rely on simple numbers and the speed of your enemies to provide difficulty rather than design. This is less than enjoyable as the last few levels are pretty much just a speed test to ensure you race through the level to the end with very little chance of actually meeting the overall goals of the game by grabbing the shipments you need.

If you're the sort of player that enjoys a puzzle game that relies more on reflexes than reasoning then Legend of Needs will be the game for you, especially in the latter stages, if not I'd give it a miss as the final stretch really does fall short of some of the more interesting game play of the earlier levels.