Moustache Mountain Reviews

Moustache Mountain is an entertaining, quick game that follows the adventures of a gentleman with a sweet moustache and his quest up a mountain for glory and moustache gel while avoiding pits, arrows, spears, spikes, and knives. It's an easy game to pick up and play for just a couple of minutes and while the ride is over quickly, it's fun while it lasts. The game itself takes place over 15 single-screen levels where the object is simply to get to the right edge of the screen and the aforementioned traps will try to kill the player. The levels ramp up slowly in difficulty and are randomly picked from a pool of 30-40 stages, so even after finishing there is replayability in seeing some of the other levels, as well as a Steam leaderboard that records the fastest times up the mountain. The graphics are good, clean pixel art that get the job done. Most dangers are obvious, with spear traps being a bit harder to see. After a couple of playthroughs, however, the player will quickly learn where they are anyway. There are whimsical touches like the lives counter having moustaches with the current life adding a little extra wiggle. There are windowed and fullscreen modes, but the window can't be resized and is really quite small. For higher resolution monitors, fullscreen is the only way to go. A scaling window is the one feature I felt was lacking here. The sounds get the job done without frills (it's a budget indie game after all, frills are extra). What music there is is fine, but there's only one track so be ready with your own playlist if you'll be playing for any significant length of time. The controls are solid and responsive, critical in a game where the only moves are jumping and wall-jumping. In short, the game does what it does well and delivers a fun distraction for a few minutes without promising any more. It's challenging, it's enjoyable, it provides some replayability and doesn't overstay its welcome. Moustache Mountain is well worth the price of admission for a little casual gaming.

[h1] A speedrunner's best friend [/h1] Seriously, the game has a built in timer, so you don't have to fiddle with splits, it's right there on the screen for you. Sure, for more accurate results, you could also run livesplit, but so far the speedrun community for this game isn't very large, so there aren't any contested runs yet. As for the game itself, its simplicity is where it shines. You can jump, and you can wall jump. That's it. No finicky other buttons to press, just directions and jump. However, the game is not without its flaws. Using a controller, my preferred platforming control method, there is a bit of a problem with the controls. Touching down on the dpad causes you to stop moving entirely. So as you go from left to right or vice versa, you might inadvertently press down as you roll over to the other side, causing you to lose momentum. This could be easily remedied by the developer by either removing that feature, or allowing the player to rebind their keys. However, I don't see that happening, since there are practically no customisation options in the game, having only sound on/off, fullscreen on/off, and vsync on/off. A solid game that I really love, that could use some improvement. [h1][b][u] 7.25/10[/u][/b][/h1]

Moustache Mountain is a small platformer featuring a total of 15 single-screen levels (with a couple of variations each), a few different simple mechanics to avoid and... well, not much more. The level design is bland and almost every sprite seems to have been copied and pasted between the stages. There's a single audio loop soundscoring the entire game. Expect about 30 minutes of game play to beat the game and about two hours if you want to clear all the achievements. Even at the low price point of a couple of Euros I think it's a mediocre value proposition at best. I can appreciate the art style but that's about all the game has going for it. If the developer adds a bit of additional content I might revisit my rating but for now there is no way that I could recommend this game.

Moustache Mountain is a fun little $2 time-killer. The smooth and simple platforming mechanics carry right over from Amatniek's previous game, There was a Caveman: with limited controls including movement and jumping, and bouncing off walls being about the most complex these moustaches get. As a tiny (but burly) man with a moustache, you platform your way up 15 single-screen levels with increasing difficulty and traps. Heaps of bloody spikes, player-activated arrow traps, shifting blades and narrow platforming -- your goal is simply to make it to the right side of each screen without losing three lives. A single, successful game should only take between three and five minutes, but it'll likely take up to an hour to get there the first time. To keep things interesting, each screen is pulled randomly from a handful of options (except level 11, which always seems to be the same). As with Nauris' other solo projects, the music is the dreariest boops and bops of anti-music, easily making it the game's weakest aspect. Moustache Mountain doesn't come with much, but it's a fun project easily worth the measly price tag it carries. I also recommend following the developer on Twitter / Patreon (@namatnieks), where he actively creates gorgeous pixel art and tutorials. :)~

This game is a pretty short, but good, arcade-style platformer. Running feels slow sometimes, but it's just right for the pace of the game. Jumping and wall-jumping are simple and responsive, which is good, because wall-jumping is a significant part of the game. Levels seem to be semi-randomized, and [i]might[/i] have multiple variations dependent on when you reach them? Gameplay is pretty simple; complete 15 levels without dying 3 times, and you win. I have no friends, and am therefore unable to review local co-op mode, but singleplayer was good. Soundtrack is unintrusive, something that could be easily muted and replaced with your own music, but something that shouldn't compel you to shut it off in fury. Art is pretty nice. High Score boards are available for the competitive. I got this on sale for $1, and I don't regret it. My largest complaints are not with the game itself, but with the Trading Cards/Achievements. I completed every other achievement before I got the 50 New Games achievements, and MUCH before the 100 New Games achievement, so I was left to grind those out by repeatedly exiting to the Title Screen and starting a new game, which was actually pretty quick, so it was less painful than it could've been. I also unlocked EVERY achievement before unlocking all of the only 3 card drops, and this was AFTER I left it idling for about 30mins while I did something else. Overall, though, definitely worth for a $1 game.

You have only 3 lives, after that it's game over. Since the difficulty is supposed to be "die and retry" you end up spending a lot of time doint the first 4 screens which are boring and not challenging. Additionally the character feels slow and heavy which makes it even a bigger chore. Also as some others have pointed out there seems to be some problem with the ledge-grabbing mechanic, and the music is a a 10 second loop that gets annoying very quickly.

Nice graphics. Familiar concept. Monotonous design and sound. So far, not a deal-breaker, especially at the low price point. The bad controls are the killer, though. This is a Meatboy-style platformer, though admittedly not designed to be as punishing. But for this style, the hitboxes are poorly sized, the wall jump detection is slow... facing the same level designs in SMB I could easily get through. Here, I get stopped cold at level 7 (if I don't slip off a wall earlier). When the brain and fingers can communicate but the game isn't listening, it's not challenge, it's rubbish.

[b]Super Moustache Man and the quest for the magical moustache gel[/b] TL;DR: [i]Moustache Mountain[/i] is a short but challenging platformer. In [i]Moustache Mountain[/i] you play as a jumpy, athletic guy who has a moustache (that sound oddly familiar?) and a simple quest: go onward and reach the top of the mountain. Graphics are indie-minimalistic but fine at that, and the funky 8-bit-like music fits the game like Super to Mario. Gameplay is simple enough. Each level is just one screen and your job is to reach the right side of it. To do this you may run (with a constant pace as there is no boost), jump, climb and wall-jump all the while avoiding traps. Initially I thought there might be some secret areas or collectables in the hard-to-reach parts of the levels, but alas, it really boils down to reaching the other side of the level. Controls are slick and work perfectly. You can play with either keyboard or controller (I used the latter). The only shaky thing is the wall-jumping that only seems to work when moving towards the wall at the same time as you jump, which is inconvenient when you have to try and jump to an overhanging ledge but matters little when you just want to climb. In comparison the movement mechanics are almost the same as in e.g. [url=http://store.steampowered.com/app/40800/]Super Meat Boy[/url] or [url=http://store.steampowered.com/app/248730/]A Walk in the Dark[/url]. [h1]Nooo, not the spikes![/h1] While those games are admittedly more difficult (and longer), there's challenge in [i]Moustache Mountain[/i]. Initial levels are just simple parkour challenges but soon enough the levels become filled with deadly spikes, dart traps and cleavers. You have only three lives and once they are spent, it's game over. At least there are no generic saw blades! That sounds pretty bad though, right? No one has time for starting over these days. But wait, actually [i]Moustache Mountain[/i] is really short. With only 15 levels the game can be beaten in under 3 minutes. There's even an achievement for that. And thankfully the hitboxes are quite generous so you know most your deaths will be your own fault. Isn't that conforting? To counter the eventual repetition, [i]Moustache Mountain[/i] has a trick to shake things up and keep it fresh: there are more levels than it initially appears. While a single run has only 15 levels of increasing difficulty, the level roster changes between runs and effectively there are something like 50 different levels. All the levels become familiar as dying is easy in any level that you haven't played before. I think this was a neat way to expand the game. That said, I would have liked to practice specific levels more without having to play through the whole game before randomly running into them. A sort of practice mode would have been a nice addition, although after a few tries even the more difficult levels become beatable. [h1]Conclusions[/h1] It's a pity that even with the rotating levels [i]Moustache Mountain[/i] took me only something like 40 runs to complete (both without dying and under 3 minutes), amounting to about 1.5 hours. Interestingly I can see that the challenge could be too much for some people: the less you've played platformers, the longer effective playtime it offers. You can also compete on the leaderboards for the shortest runs. By the way: There's a local co-op mode though I didn't try it. However it seems that some of the later levels might be more difficult in co-op because of the reactive traps. Hard to say whether that's a good or a bad thing though it might add some randomness and fun to the soup. For a game that costs 2 € it has an okay amount of content. It has Steam cards too to sweeten the deal. If you like platformers go ahead and buy it to get a quick snack.

I'm sure the rest of you thirty-plussers know just how it is: the 9-to-5 grinds away at your adrenal glands, animals and family set you to running at home, and quieter hobbies (books, writing, TV) call out to you during your tired evenings. That's my situation; I can't muster up the interest in more than two or three large games a year, if that. Aging sucks, huh? But you know what I'm always hungry for? A cheap, short, medium-hard indie that, as Mellencamp sings, will "thrill me, and then go away." This here is the very definition, dear friends! It's nice to look at, it's challenging, and the gameplay is as smooth as Kentucky creek rock. And did I say it was cheap? So very cheap? A little shot of something strong to keep the harried tricenarians among us going!

Pro: The art style is pretty awesome. Con: Everything else. It takes what makes other hardcore-wall-jumping platformers great and removes it. Take super meat boy, remove 95% of the content, and give the player 3 lives to complete the game and you have Moustache Mountain. I wanted to like this game so bad. It is just that the charm of the game is purely in its visuals... also it has "Moustache" in the title. I guess it is impressive for the sale price of $0.49 that I picked it up for, but I just had such high hopes.