I have a problem with my upstairs neighbors. I live in a building that’s mostly made of particle board, and the people upstairs stomp around like centaurs trying to crush a mouse under their hooves. They don’t throw wild parties, but I still want them to die. If tonight, after writing this, I try to go to bed and am kept awake by the rhythmic thud of a bass drum and the cacophonous thunder of people dancing on cheap floorboards, I may even secretly fantasize of throwing on a hockey mask, grabbing a kitchen knife and bathing myself in their warm entrails to Shackleton’s “Blood on My Hands”. But I would never actually do that… Would I? No, no, I couldn’t… So thank God for Pinokl’s Party Hard, the tender story of man who just wanted to get some Goddamn sleep, but the neighbors wouldn’t allow it. The every man, who got pushed too far…
The game’s publisher, tinyBuild, describes Party Hard as a “tactical game about stopping parties”, although I think tactical murder simulator is more direct. As the Party Hard Killer you have only one goal in every level: Kill everyone. Each level takes place in stages like out of control raves, hillbilly mixers and haunted Halloween ragers. The game plays with a top down view that lets you see the entire level from the beginning, starting you off with only your knife, which kills with a single hit, but only one person at a time. Killing a party goer is as easy as a single button press, but if others should find one of your victims they will call the police, and if someone saw you do it the cops will come specifically to arrest you. In order to clear a map, which usually contains 30 to 60 people, you’re going to have to use some stealth and subterfuge to kill everyone without being captured or killed yourself.
In addition to your blade, each level contains numerous traps that you can set to kill unsuspecting victims without drawing attention to yourself: You can rig an oven to blow up when someone passes by, or push a victim into a bonfire. These actions will still usually get the cops called if someone sees, but you will be clear of suspicion. The killer can also hide and dispose of bodies to keep others from realizing what’s going on. Some levels will also contain pick ups which you can use to cause further mayhem, such as blinding smoke bombs which give you the cover to knife a whole dance floor without being seen, or a sword which can chop through multiple targets at once. Getting through a level without being arrested, killed by one of your own traps, or just beaten into submission by bouncers will require you to strategically work your way through party goers, striking lone victims when no one can see or staging large scale death on big groups. It’s a challenge you will find always easier said than done.
Party Hard enjoys very colorful and fun pixel graphics which gives its gory mission a light, fun feel. Each stage contains lots of detail, from shabby party houses to glitzy Vegas clubs and glamorous rooftop events, each level is unique and lively as dozens of sprites dance, drink, make out, cook, or sometimes just pass out on a couch. Each level also features some pretty great, catchy electronic dance tracks that go great with the big, chaotic parties you’ll be slashing your way through. The soundtrack is what really nails the experience, and some of them are catchy enough I found myself humming them at the office. Presentation wise Party Hard is a pretty solid home run.
Gameplay-wise Party Hard starts out pretty solid. Levels are interactive and fun, though a lot of things don’t feel well explained. Much of it is intuitive however, and the core concepts only take a few tries to master. The first time you stage a trap just right and rack up a good group kill is pretty great, and when you narrowly escape capture by the police it can be a pretty good thrill. It’s in the later levels of the game when the mechanics start having trouble keeping up…
Each party stage will have changing elements which will switch up through multiple attempts, offering different traps, crowd layouts and items. This is cool aspect which doesn’t necessarily work out as well as I would have hoped. It seems that the level changes every dozen tries or so, requiring you to switch up your strategy when it does, but some setups just feel devoid of useful traps or opportunities. I often found myself stuck unsuccessfully playing a barren level over and over again, only to move on to a new layout which had a stun grenade I could use to knock out an entire crowd and clear the level with ease. In theory I think this could add a lot to replayability and challenge, but I found it just means that you’ll get stuck a lot with little recourse.
Party Hard does have some issues, especially in the game’s later levels. For a tactical game, I often found myself not presented with a lot of options for how to take out large groups. All the traps are fixed in position, so you can’t set up your deadliest weapons next to crowds, and most of the time you’re going to be looking at a dance floor full of people who you can’t attack. The Killer can dance himself, which everyone seems to find so repugnant that it will drive them away from the crowd, but this didn’t seem to work reliably, and I often had to wait for individuals to wander off to pass out one-by-one, which can get tedious when you’ve got twenty other dancers to deal with the same way.
Throughout all 12 levels of the game Party Hard continues to maintain variety in its setting and soundtrack, but the game itself has a harder time keeping up. There’s only a small handful of traps, and you don’t really find many new or exciting ones as levels progress; in fact the last level is strangely bland. Traps repeat themselves a lot, including exploding gumball machines which feel like they’re featured everywhere. As the parties get bigger and more crowded, the stealth mechanics become almost impossible to practice and it becomes an exercise in stabbing individual stragglers. I think this is just what happens when you add too much chaos to a game that’s systems aren’t finely fleshed out. Overall the game is a lot of fun, but it unfortunately wears out its welcome faster than it wraps up.
I had a pretty good time for most of Party Hard. In fact, I played most of the game in a single 8 hour session and enjoyed most of it, though when I picked it up to experiment the next day I found that I really didn’t want to look at it again. It’s a fun idea that takes a premise where you’re doing something horrible and makes it fun with some goofball antics and some pretty sweet music. It really could have been polished more before release, with some glaring translation errors and some core concepts that needed to be fine tuned, but it was still a pretty fun experience. If it sounds like your thing I’m sure you can get your money’s worth. Hopefully Pinokl will learn from their mistakes and keep making more quirky games like this, I’d like to see more of what they have to offer.
This review was done on retail code provided to us by the developer.
