[Discovering Indies] Russian Dancing Men

The game I will briefly discuss in this article is the incredibly amazing and bizarre Russian Dancing Men, by SmashMouth Games. It is one of those games that is so, so incredible that it stays burned into your mind, and you will repeat the songs over and over again during the day and at night. You will dream of the Cossacks dancing to the music of Magical Trevor and you will wake up with a huge smile that will reflect rainbows on the walls of your room, while the little birds outside sing incessantly "yeah yeah, yeah, the cow is back!" and they shit chocolates.

The game is based on a short musical made by the animator known on the web as peabo, and is deeply linked to another animator known as Weeble. The latter is responsible for several flash animations intended for the web, which have become a viral phenomenon a few years ago around the world, such as Narwhals. In general, Weebl's work contains catchy, repetitive electro-pop songs, with lyrics that are completely meaningless and random (random). And so random It is also the game that I analyze here, perfect for those who love absurd humor and/or rhythm games.

As we can see in the video at the top of this paragraph, the Cossack dancers in the game have a lot of charisma and sing very well, and you can't help but like them. That video is precisely the Peabo short that gave rise to this game, and those same Russian dancers are the ones that we will control throughout this humorous adventure full of crazy and repetitive songs, dancing through various landscapes and overcoming obstacles that a certain zombie leader has left in our path.

To be honest, everything wonderful I'm saying the game is is just to get me in tune with its brand of humor, because it's not that wonderful or great. Russian Dancing Men lives from his sense of humor, and if you are not a fan of absurd humor, it is more than possible that you will not find this game funny and consider it garbage. The opposite happens if you are one of those who enjoy songs like the one mentioned above. Magical Trevor (and that you can see and hear often after this paragraph), in which case you will find this game one of the funniest in the App Store and you will not get tired of repeating the levels trying to improve your score, while listening to its absurd soundtrack over and over again.

However, and beyond its humor, the game presents us with a high difficulty and it is a great challenge to achieve the highest score in each level, especially if you play on the Hard difficulty, which can become a real hell.

Its gameplay is basically that of a rhythm game, where you will have to press one or two buttons at a time at the appropriate time to help your character (a Cossack, leader of a troop of dancers) overcome the obstacles on the stages and lead your troop safely to the end of the level. Each of the levels presents a different theme in terms of the setting and characters involved, and obviously the songs will also be different. The scenarios are based on individual videos or Weebl series, and the songs belong to those same videos, including that of Magical Trevor and that of Narwhals.

The difficulty, as I have already mentioned, is high, and to regulate this you have some options in the main menu which are: Tap Mode, Easy, Normal and Hard. In Tap Mode You just have to touch the screen anywhere at the right time to overcome the obstacles, making this the simplest and easiest option. Easy It presents us with another style of play, in which we will see up to 4 buttons on the screen with different figures and depending on the obstacle to overcome we will have to press one or another button. If it seems difficult for you to hit the correct button, since they only differ in shape but not in color, let me tell you that the difficulty is even greater when you encounter double obstacles, because to successfully overcome them you must press two buttons at the same time, and both have to be the correct ones, obviously. Normal and Hard they only differ from Easy in the number of obstacles that will appear in the scenarios, and how many of them are doubles.

As you advance through the levels and succeed with your movements, you will gain Cossacks who will join your troop, up to a maximum of 8. When you fail a movement you will lose one of the Cossacks, and obviously if you lose them all you will fail the level and you will have to start over. As is normal in these games, if you play on high difficulty you must practice a lot to be able to pass the levels, since failing at an obstacle makes it take you a few moments to complete the game. resetear tu cerebro para volver al ritmo y perderás muchos cosacos por el camino.

Gráficamente el juego es bastante simple, pero no se le puede pedir más al estar basado en animaciones flash que tienen el estilo exacto del juego. Los escenarios son básicos pero muy coloridos, y aunque en el frenesí del juego estarás concentrado viendo el avance de los obstáculos para calcular el ritmo de tus movimientos, de fondo van ocurriendo cosas que le agregan mucha vida y humor a estos niveles.

La banda sonora del juego es destacable. Todas las canciones son cantadas, y todas tienen letras cortas pero repletas de humor absurdo además de tener estribillos muy pegadizos que, debido a la dificultad del juego y a los reintentos de niveles, los escucharás tantas veces que se te pegarán en la mente como un parásito come-cerebros.

Russian Dancing Men no pretende ser el mejor juego en la App Store ni el mejor juego de ritmos que existe. Su única pretensión es divertir, presentar un reto para los más exigentes, y hacerte sonreír por un buen rato. Y eso, para mí, es más que suficiente en un videojuego destinado al mercado móvil. Actualmente está disponible como aplicación universal para iOS (iPhone, iPad), y a pesar de que el desarrollador planeó extender el juego mediante la compra de contenido descargable, y lanzar también una versión para Android hasta el momento ninguna de ambas cosas se ha realizado, y parece ser que no se realizará. Quizás el lanzamiento de la serie web animada de Russian Dancing Men en abril de este año fue un intento de provocar nuevo interés en estos personajes, pero supongo que no ha sido suficiente como para retomar el proyecto de actualización del juego y el desarrollo de su correspondiente versión para otros sistemas.