Suicide Guy (PC)

In the film Inception, characters are able to enter deeper and deeper layers of dreams as they seek to either steal information from the subconscious mind or plant new ideas. Escaping these dreams required a harsh shock to the body of the person entering them, this most easily achieved by having the dream invader die. This 2010 surreal thriller’s high stakes made for a popular action film, but in 2017, an indie game used a similar dream world concept for a story with its own high price for failure. If the hero of Suicide Guy is unable to wake himself up in time… he’ll spill his beer.

After dozing off while watching T.V., the game’s hero, referred to oddly enough as Suicide Guy, finds himself in a diner. Before he can really process the new dream world, he receives a warning that back in reality, the drink he was holding has slipped from his grip and is about to hit the floor. The only way to wake himself up is by dying, but the diner offers no way to do so, the door to the more death-friendly outside world locked until he enters 25 different dream levels and first finds a way to die in each one of them. Suicide Guy is not trying to make light of suicide in any way nor is presented as some grim reflection on death, the whole game carrying a goofy tone to match its goofy goal. The deaths our hero experiences are the kind of over the top demises you’d expect in an action movie or cartoon, some drawing explicit inspiration from other media, and since the game is presented in first person, you never really see any bloody consequences for your self-imposed eliminations.

The most interesting aspect of Suicide Guy is that almost every level feels incredibly different from each other. They will often adhere to the game’s two broad gameplay styles, some levels having a platforming focus but most more akin to puzzles in a 3D space where you need to find out which combination of items and actions will ensure your death. Some levels are very simple and can be completed pretty much as soon as you realize what the stage is about while others could pass for a full-fledged level like the kind you’d find in a more straightforward action game, killing yourself sometimes requiring multiple steps or overcoming different challenges before you have the sufficient means to do so.

Every stage includes a statue of the main character to find, and while many levels are fairly small in design to encourage the player to figure things out based on limited options, the quest to find these gives you a reason to look around besides finding the tools you’ll need to self-terminate. The 3D platforming is a little awkward like any first-person platformer unfortunately, although Suicide Guy will let you pull yourself up onto a platform if you were close enough to its edge to make up for the expected misjudging of distance and speed. Puzzles can have their own small problems, moving and carrying objects not always represented well graphically as they float around oddly or lag behind your own movements, but these usually are a graphical problem rather than a functional one. The cartoon graphics can be a little inconsistent, it not rare to see an object clipping into another or liquids passing through things, but overall it helps prevent any association with heavier topics on death by having everything look so goofy and colorful.

The concepts behind the deaths definitely fit into the mold of being ridiculous and silly while also serving as interesting puzzles to engage with. The dream worlds follow so many different ideas for locations that seeing what the next stage will be is always a treat, even if things do start with some very simple ideas like being on top of a train or a really tall building. Later though, you’ll find yourself looking at a T-Rex from the other side of some glass, or you’ll be on a spaceship you’re in charge of piloting, or you’ll be in a science laboratory making a giant mechanical version of yourself come to life. Some areas like a junkyard or warehouse aren’t as fantastical, but they do serve the main point of the game well, that being finding which part of the environment can be used to kill yourself. Things may seem straightforward at first when you’re plopped in next to a giant dragon… but it’s asleep and won’t end your life until you can get its attention. You’ll find yourself in an office space and there’s no immediately obvious way to die when the windows are too tough to break, but here’s where finding the puzzle elements find their footing. There is only one way to die in the level, the game not even able to punish you for messing up since it can’t just kill you to show you’re doing things wrong, but the puzzles are interesting little challenges of finding the proper sequence of events to trigger the end of your life. When Suicide Guy is embracing these diverse death scenarios and you’re testing your ability to figure out what sequence of events will beat the level, it is definitely at its best.

Some levels in Suicide Guy though hinge more on the platforming, but thankfully it’s not really bad so much as limited by its perspective. These levels do feel a little less special for it though, many being more about hopping across pillar tops or scaling ledges rather than figuring out what clever method is required to overcome the strange predicament you find yourself in. Stages like the ancient temple and the level based off of Super Mario Bros. almost purely emphasize the need to leap over gaps to reach new areas, but they do often contain small puzzle elements as well to keep things fresh. Arranging objects to assist in the jumping is common to these, although the Mario level has the unfortunate feature of needing to carry multiple blocks one at a time to new locations in a somewhat slow process. More interesting though are levels that combine the platforming and problem solving in interesting ways such as the level based on Hal 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey where you must work around the evil AI’s attempts to hamper your progress in shutting it down. This level quite wisely puts the important fire extinguisher item all over the place so it doesn’t need to be babysat like the blocks from the Mario level, although that stage made the blocks the reward for completing jumping challenges and couldn’t just hand them out as freely. Some action focused levels like the carnival one still manage to feel like they fit in well despite being less about puzzle solving, but the game probably would have remained more consistent in its delights if the level navigation was more a means to an end than a heavy focus in a few of the longer levels.

THE VERDICT: Suicide Guy’s dream worlds make for a series of enjoyable and varied puzzle challenges, each new situation feeling distinct and providing entertaining new ways to find solutions. A few levels decide to have their challenge tied mostly to the slightly awkward platforming though and tend to feel a bit weaker for it, but the commitment to having each new level feel incredibly different makes sure that even a few duds can’t drag down the whole package. Self-termination is certainly a strange goal, but Suicide Guy finds many unique scenarios for it and makes sure they’re colorful and silly so that the process of dying ends up delightful.

And so, I give Suicide Guy for PC…

A GOOD rating. Suicide Guy is definitely the kind of game that’s fun to describe to friends. The many weird levels and the ways the hero dies are ridiculous and your solutions can end up just as silly, but the humor in them is strong enough you can enjoy it on your own as well. Having the means of death right in your face only to realize things aren’t going to be so easy and then finding out the strange way you pull it off makes Suicide Guy’s levels more interesting than just their concepts, and very few every reach a point where it’s too hard to figure out what you’re meant to do even with a few misdirects here and there. The strength of the total package is very good, but the platforming levels are definitely less inspired not only because their concepts are simpler, but the challenges are often just about placing things to make jumps possible. Add in some of the simpler stages and Suicide Guy’s whole can’t quite reach greater heights, but this game still concocts plenty of interesting scenarios so little stumbles in concept won’t ever bog down the game for long. This isn’t the only game where dying is your goal, but by introducing so much creativity to the different ways you can die, it keeps your interest and keeps you entertained as you eagerly anticipate the form your next death will take.

Suicide Guy does a marvelous job at contextualizing its puzzles, the quest to kill yourself in absurd dreams somehow rooted in sound logic and clever solutions. It does lose its way with a few of the level designs, but it never abandons its commitment to humor and creativity. Whether you’re harassing an Moby Dick or launching a cow through a barn roof, Suicide Guy’s commitment to absurdity makes you excited to see how you’ll die next.