The Humble Treasure Trove is a new series where we look into two games from Humble Bundle’s Trove; a collection of indie and AAA games that gets added to every month and can be accessed at any time as long as you have a subscription.
Cut & Run
The Earth is going to be hit by a meteor in 5 days and you’re our only hope. Use your sword that grows with every slice to cut the world ending rock in half. This is the simplistic and fun plot of Cut & Run.
Cut & Run is a third-person, puzzle-action game. Developed by Simple Machine and published by Humble Bundle. You play as an unnamed character who has been tasked with saving his town from an oncoming meteor using a sword given to you by your inventor father who has turned himself into a frog through science.
This is not your everyday sword, however. The sword grows in length with everything you slice. The game is broken up into levels where you have a single objective such as ‘Slice 50 Lemons’ or ‘Clean All the Trash off the Beach’. All the missions have a time limit that can be a bit short, so you’ll most likely have to repeat levels to beat them.
During each level, you’ll earn gold coins which can be used to buy character upgrades. Things like movement speed, sword growth rate, and a coin multiplier are essential to pick up. Although, because the game can be difficult without upgrading these aspects of your character, you may find yourself going through levels purposely failing so that you can get a bunch of gold.
The art style feels late PS1-ish in that it’s polygonal, but you still know what everything is. The colors are very bright and happy. The town is always nice and sunny, so you get this nice feeling while walking around slicing park benches and traffic cones.
With its shortcomings in mind, I still had fun with Cut & Run. The jokes were funny, the gameplay was solid and did what it set out to do, and I really enjoyed the polygonal art style.
I would recommend giving Cut & Run your time as it’s not a very long game and I’m sure that you’ll enjoy the experience.
-Logan Wilson
140
140 is a simple, it’s a minimalist rhythm platformer that doesn’t do anything too unique, or special. Yet, what it does, it does it damn well.
140 at a first sight could pass-off as an Atari 2600 game, which certainly is uncommon. Most games go for more of that NES and SNES style, so it’s nice to see the good old 2600 seeing some representation for a change. Those simple rectangular shapes, more than basic graphics and almost sickening hues and colors are incredibly nostalgic and work great in a platformer.
Unlike many 2600 games, in 140 you move forward and you jump. A premise as simple as the controls themselves which consist of ‘W’ and ‘D’ keys for movement and ‘SPACE’ for jump. That is it. Your goal, like in most platformers, is to move forward. As you move along you will encounter these multi-coloured floating balls, which you then will have to deliver to a circle which will transform the music and mechanics of the level so that you can progress further. Speaking of the music, it is one of the game’s strong points. Not only are the slow techno beats incredibly good, the whole game seems to be designed around it. Platforms and obstacles move in rhythm of a techno, ever-changing soundtrack, yet compared to something like Geometry Dash it’s much slower and requires more tactics. Beats which seem very simple are actually quite elaborate. They contain a lot of beats and sounds which have their own rhythm patterns, which you have to really listen into, to complete some sections of the stage. Which is something very interesting and unique in a rhythm game.
Overall it’s a great simple game. It’s not too long so it doesn’t overstay its welcome, but long enough to provide some satisfying fun. It’s challenging but the frequent checkpoints and lack of cheap deaths make you want to try again and again. Overall, it’s a game worth checking out, and if you have Humble Trove access, it’s a must play!
-Michael Pyre
