My gaming habits have changed significantly in the last decade. I used to be able to devote hours upon hours of time to a single video game. Fable II, Fallout 3, and Call of Duty: Black Ops each took up a large portion of my free time. Now, I have more responsibilities and my available gaming time has shrunk. The promise of hundreds of levels and hundreds of hours is a turn-off and it is rare that I find myself wishing for a game to be longer. 101 Ways To Die by developer 4 Door Lemon is one of those games that I never wanted to end.
Mad scientist Professor Splattunfuder lost all of his life’s work, and he has hired you to recreate 101 unique death scenarios to fill out his ruined portfolio. To help Professor Splattunfuder you must smash, explode, impale, burn, trick, and grind the helpless Splatts in unique ways in order to reproduce all 101 scenarios. The story is only put into the game to drive the gameplay forward, and I am fine with that. This game would not benefit from an engrossing tale as the focus is on the physics-based death puzzles. Your only goal is to stop the Splatts from reaching the exit of each level because a crazy guy asked you to.
In 101 Ways To Die, the puzzles really shine. The game is broken up into five areas, each containing about a dozen puzzles. The first few puzzles are designated as easy and involve teaching you the mechanics of the new weapons used to kill the Splatts. The middle levels are medium and begin to test your planning skills. The final few levels are hard and they will take you some time. The hard levels usually involve the planning of the medium levels mixed with some timed interaction by the player. For example, in one level you must explode a mine by clicking on it. This starts a chain reaction through the level of all the traps you have set. Finally, as a Splatt is jumping off a ledge, your final blast goes off and knocks him backward onto some spikes.
The gameplay has an awesome loop. You start every level by scoping out the objectives which will tell you which types of weapons you have available, which types of weapons are pre-placed on the level, how many and which types of Splatts you will be destroying, and the specific ways to die must you obtain. After starting the level, you can click right bumper to see a color-coded version of the level in order to understand where to place your available weapons. After the planning stage has finished, you release the Splatts and hope you complete all the level-specific objectives. These include: kill all Splatts, kill a Splatt with spikes, kill two Splatts with a boulder, etc. If you fail any objective and don’t receive a 3-star performance, you can click in the left thumb stick and instantly restart the level. This keeps the frustration incredibly low since you are not waiting minutes to reload a failed attempt.
Each completed level came with the great satisfaction of seeing my planning and preparation pay off. A lot of times you have to just place down weapons or traps and cross your fingers, hoping that you correctly predicted all of the actions of the Splatts. The game does offer help through a hint system that never directly gives the answer away, but will provide some key information on a path you may have overlooked. The developer also posts solution guides on their YouTube page to help you if you get really stuck.
101 Ways To Die is a very pretty game to look at. Each horrific death chamber is beautifully animated, and the character models of the Splatts fit in perfectly. This only helps compliment the solid puzzle mechanics that 4 Door Lemon have created within their game. The only issue I found with the game was that the innovative beginning worlds gave me heightened expectations for the final world that 101 Ways To Die could not meet. The last world felt like more of the same, and I would like to have seen a few more new weapons or mechanics introduced.
Summary
Any fan of the physics-based puzzle genre will appreciate the care and thoughtfulness put into each and every puzzle in 101 Ways To Die. Even though the final world felt like a wrap-up, it plays like the last bite of a cheeseburger–incredible. I truly consider this game to be a highlight of the current generation.
Joshua was a regular ICXM contributor between 2016–2017, publishing 42 articles across game reviews, and Xbox news. Their work focused on hands-on reviews, platform commentary, and breaking-news reporting during the Xbox One X launch year and Microsoft’s wider Play Anywhere / UWP gaming initiative.