Sling Ming Reviews

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good game

Bright, colorful art style. Quirky story and a genuinely new take on puzzle/platforming. Definitely a game that can induce rage, but I am having a great time with it. https://youtu.be/vTvMNYS3sMQ

Sling Ming is a mobile app that's been dumped on Steam as if it was a real PC game (it's not)... it's a cash grab from greedy mobile devs. This mobile app is a basic swinging object/pathing/reflexes type mobile game with limited to no interest for PC gamers. In fact, as we'll get into later, despite having trading cards, the game is so crap it didn't even attract trading card idlers... that's how worthless this turned out to be for PC gamers. In this mobile app, you'll tap away eagerly on your iPhone screen as a girl swings along the various actuation points of a static rail, avoiding programmed roaming bots and wishing you could have a gaming PC so that you could pay cash money for free mobile apps. Do you like paying money for free things? This could very well be the game for you! There's an overwhelming amount of mediocre Visual Novel/E-book style cutscenes in this mobile app. So you'll spend a huge amount of time not playing the game, but clicking through endless lines of poorly written VN text cutscenes because the developers couldn't work out how to relate their narrative through the game mechanics, and decided instead it would be better to compete with reading a book for your time. We're here to play games, not watch hours of garbage intersituals. From a technical perspective, as a mobile app, this doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard. While there are options to change the resolution for the mobile app, all this does is scale up the simplistic 2D art assets used to make the mobile app, which makes little or no difference to the graphics quality. Without any other substantial graphics tweaks, it's not possible for gamers to improve the lacklustre 2D visuals. The controls can't be customised, which will be an annoyance for many, but it can also render the mobile app unplayable for differently-abled gamers, left handed gamers or gamers using AZERTY or other international keyboard layouts. Because this is a mobile app, it carries a number of deliberate design deficiencies. Compromises were made to cater to the iPhones that the mobile app was designed for. These are unfortunate handicaps and limitations that PC gamers shouldn't be forced to accept, but it's evident that PC was an afterthought for the iPhone developers who are to blame for this. The mobile app is deficient as a result of these choices, and would have been so much better without the handicaps that designing games for mobile phones forces upon a game. Once more, mobile devs have made gaming worse for everyone. I didn't spend thousands on building a gaming rig just so I could pretend it's an iPhone. These technical defects push this mobile app below acceptable standards for any modern PC game. Sling Ming didn't appeal much to the people who own a copy of the mobile app, either. It has achievements, and they show us a very clear picture that the mobile app didn't really capture any interest from gamers. The most commonly and easily attained achievement is for getting through the mobile app tutorial, trivial to get, but less than 31 percent of players bothered to get that far before uninstalling the mobile app. Hardly a success story, gamers just weren't all that interested in the mobile app. The poor quality of this mobile app is also reflected by how many people spent time with it. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the all-time peak player number was only 7 players. This is a remarkably low number, and now, the only player activity occurs once or twice a month, presumably someone loading it up to see what it is then quickly uninstalling it. Considering there's over 120 million gamers on Steam and well over 100,000 games for gamers to choose from, the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality mobile app is to be expected. So, should you buy this free mobile app? Once more we see greedy mobile devs trying to scam PC gamers. On Steam, this is $5 USD, on app stores, it's free. Mobile devs must learn PC gamers are not here to be gouged, and can't be expected to pay a premium for a free mobile app just because it's been lazily dumped on Steam. This is unacceptable disrespect for PC gamers. Because this can be played free elsewhere, and because of the other defects, it's impossible to recommend. Just who do they think we are?

Too hard for me the platforming is. Takes all of my play time, so I hardly remember if there were puzzles in there. Good game nonetheless, both in presentation and mechanics. Most appreciated feature is that you can skip levels you don't like, after collecting enough tokens. Particularly useful on the 2nd planet, where I dislike the majority of the levels. Mostly because of timers. Did I ever mention that timers can ruin any game ? Well, they do here, in the end, but only after being kept in check for quite some time. The main flaw of the game is that this best feature is disabled during boss fights. In essence, no way to skip Flaw Number 3, boss fights, in particular one that is plagued with Flaw Number 2, a timer. I'll never see the 3rd planet then. Which I believe is a third of the game. There is still enough entertainment to be had. The physics are cool, with lots of hanging and swinging. Enough challenges to play levels repeatedly, for speed, hard to reach specials, secrets to find... Recommended as good fun. As long as you know what you are getting into. If you are a completionist, you'd better have many fingers, many eyes, and a Swiss stopwatch brain implant.

Fun, polished and very pretty. Also appreciated that I can play it on my mac laptop when I'm on the go.

Another great suprise! Very challenging. Momentum plays a big part; even on the early levels. Of course there are some days when I don't have the patience to play something like this but it definitely on my favorites list!

Gorgeous! Really nice looking game and good bouncy feeling in the bungee cord which makes the game really enjoyable. Lots of different sorts of puzzles and variation in gameplay. I really enjoy the combination of figuring out how to solve a challenge together with the action part of the game. Be aware that the game is much more challenging than what the cute graphics might make you believe, but it does also offer hints where new skills are needed. This will probably be even nicer with touch devices, since trackpad did not feel like the best match. I will use a mouse when playing from now on. All in all a very enjoyable game. Highly recommended!

Great game in several aspects! Original and very interesting mechanics. Good level design too. My main criticism is a very common occurrence with puzzle games; it borrows elements from action games where repetition works better. Once you figured out how to traverse a section of a level, where to put the nodes, the swing time etc, it feels nice but doing it again becomes a chore. It's not like dying in super mario where there was nothing to figure out, you just need enough reflexes to avoid the goomba. Repetition in an action game is a signal that you didn't master what needs to be mastered yet, but when you bring puzzle elements to it, the repetition will force you through already solved puzzles as well. It's a difficult mix to get right. So the game is cool but could be more fun with either 1) less hazards and repetition during puzzles, or 2) less puzzles and more action with faster and more dynamic gameplay; stuff like health meter, attack options, faster movement and simpler control schemes. Obviously I would prefer alternative 1 since it's much closer to the original intention of the game. But I do love some original mechanics. And despite the criticisms above I think this is a pretty good game. The visuals are super nice, the music is great, it's a well polished game in all.