I felt like I had a rhythmic understanding of the mechanics. I navigated around a little map, completed a simple puzzle, and was generally in a good mood. For example, at one stage I got myself comfortable with the way the game was playing. Unfortunately, a major issue crops up soon enough, which I find to be an interest in most games that base themselves so heavily on physics engines the character feels too much like a beanbag with no limbs, resulting in many moves not doing what you might expect them to. In the later levels, Human: Fall Flat presents players with interesting mechanics, such as rolling barrels down a slide, rowing a boat, and, my personal favourite, a catapult in the castle level. But it does it well, and the puzzles flow organically to marry with the visual style. Human: Fall Flat is very good at achieving what you would expect from a physics-based game, to the point where at times it can almost feel too much like where it has been rung in, and the developers were working through a dry checklist. The game contains a variety of objects that can be pushed, pulled or thrown. Oddly enough, the game is an oddly muted expression of the surrealist art style, when in video games we’re used to this aesthetic being taken to the extreme, but there is nonetheless a lovely dreamlike quality to the experience. His constant fear of falling has manifested into a surreal set of puzzles that you have to navigate him through.

Human: Fall Flat is a physics based puzzler in which Bob, the protagonist that the doll is a manifestation of, is experiencing bizarre landscapes in his dreams. The character is a blank canvas which you will want to draw on like a child finding themselves in art class for the first time, and it is simplicity at its best, which gives the game more personality than you might have expected going in to a game with such a blank canvas for a character. Related reading: Octodad is really the forerunner in this “genre.” Our full review.

Comparing the character with a fragile emotionless object is an apt description in what the game wants to achieve, too. Almost like a game about a porcelain doll, Human: Fall Flat lets you take control over a character with a bright white, flat textured body.

Human fall flat character