The two-dimensional platformer can already provide a puzzling time for players even before you introduce gimmicks like time distortion or, in the case of Mighty Flip Champs!, multiple overlapping stages, accessible through a quick hop into another dimension, but some players want and seek out these brain-melting games.
Still feeling dumb after failing to make swift progress through Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box, I'm about to tackle a 'simple little platform puzzler' that will inevitably begin to sprawl into something more monstrous in no time at all.
How far do I think I'll get? Not very, but I might surprise myself, right?
Fun Times
At the time of the 1001 list, Mighty Flip Champs! was only available as a downloadable DSiWare title, but in the years since, and the more than a decade it took for me to learn what this game even is, it's got a release on other platforms, so I'm emulating a PlayStation Portable for this one.
Instead, you jump into other dimensions. You are playing on the left of the screen (so I guess the top of the Nintendo DS screen), and the wibbly wobbly differently coloured stage on the right is where you'll be transported to when you jump, or rather that stage will flip over to where you are.
Any of that make sense? Go as far as you can in the blue stage, flip it to the red stage, move past the obstacle that now no longer exists, then flip back to the blue stage to say hello to the frog that signals the end of the stage.
That's your goal each level, finding a route to this green guy, and leaping into his arms and giving him a kiss. At least that's what I think the teeny tiny animation shows us.
It's not long before levels have you hopping between multiple stage layouts, rather than back and forth between two. Each of these stages has its own obstacles to steer clear of, and its own solutions to help you get around obstacles in the other coloured sections.
What this means is that you explore as much as you can of one colour before inevitably being able to go no further, positioning yourself at a point that makes sense in the next part of the stage (i.e. not in a wall or on a spike trap), flipping the stage and carrying on until the next obstacle stops you in your tracks.
Frustrations
What do you mean you want your cat? Get out of here.
At least I knew my way around the level this time...
After a few stages, Mighty Flip Champs! had taught me a few little tricks to help me get around. In some places you need to make leaps of faith, falling to your doom before flipping the stage at the last moment to land safely elsewhere. In others, you've got to mentally string together a route through three or four stages but can only ever see two of them at a time.
As you can see, I was very good at finding my way back to square one, and no good at all at finding the path forward in a level that went from 0-100 quite quickly.
This was only the 7th level of the game, with many of the first levels being introductions to how it's going to play. If this is the base level of difficulty for Mighty Flip Champs!, then I'm going to have to check out here because I don't have a clue where to go - and there aren't any obvious hints to help me out this time.
Final Word
Mighty Flip Champs! is indeed a simple little platform puzzler at heart, but I'm not wired to get the most out of it. If the gameplay doesn't engage me, I fall back on story and characters to help pull me along - if I like them, I'll overlook gameplay that irks me, to some extent. The characters here are cartoon cutouts, and that's it. I don't even know our heroine's name.
So I can't rely on them to help me through the game. I have to hope the gameplay is good enough to keep me busy, and it is a clever twist on platforming that will indeed make players scratch their heads and go around in circles looking for a solution.
It does its job as a puzzle platformer well and is worth a look to see if you're enticed to try it out some more, but it's simply too much for me to keep in my tiny mind, and I don't want to be frustrated when I play games.
I'm fine with being too stupid for Mighty Flip Champs!. Will I try it again when I'm smarter? Eh, it's not high up the list, that's for sure. It's there for a target audience that I don't think I fit into. Maybe you do.
Fun Facts
I'm pleased to read that the game wasn't designed for younger or more inexperienced players. I'm not so pleased to read those younger players did better than expected during testing. I think I'm dumb, or maybe just happy.
Mighty Flip Champs!, developed by WayForward Technologies, first released in 2009.
Version played: Mighty Flip Champs! DX, PlayStation Portable, 2011, via emulation.