Refunct - Review
Originally published May 2017This should be the quickest of the Quick & Dirty reviews since this was perhaps the game I finished the fastest. Steam says I've played Refunct for a total of 24 minutes. Five of those minutes were spent wandering around, wondering if I beat the game. So, an experience that short, was it worth it?
For the most part, I'd say it was worth it. There were a few key factors to this experience. One was the price. The other was the overall quality of those nineteen minutes.
The Short of It
Pros
Price tag: $2.99
Controls are fluid, natural, and feel great.
Looks nice; bright colors.
Pleasant music.
Cons
Short. Short. Short.
The Rest of It
Refunct is a first-person platformer that has you jumping from one platform to another. It's good-looking, fast-moving, fun, and extremely short. The goal is to simply jump on the next red button that becomes available, using the platforming mechanics available to you. Refunct does not spend time teaching you these mechanics. If it did, that would likely take up half your time with the game. Instead, it's all learned by doing. It takes very little time to learn that you can run, jump, and jump against walls to gain height and climb up ledges.
That's all you do. For what it's worth—which is just $3—it's fun. It's just a shame that it doesn't actually go beyond twenty minutes. Considering the fact that the way each of these miniature puzzles could easily be replicated and procedural, I was surprised that the game was so short. That being said, if the game was just made longer to have more of these mini-puzzles, I don't think the game's value would go up. However, it would have been nice to have more of a reason to keep playing the game beyond what they initially gave you.
The biggest disappointment of Refunct is its length. Once you finish the game, you can keep playing, solving the same puzzles, but the illusion of progression is gone and there's nothing new to discover. A game that has such smooth controls and a soothing, ambient soundtrack that makes the experience almost therapeutic, shouldn't end so quickly. Still, when your only significant flaw is that the fun game is too short, that's not a bad position to be in.
TL;DR (Conclusion)
If this review was too long because you liked brief experiences, then you might like Refunct because you could probably finish the game in less time than it would take you to read this whole review. For the small price tag, the game doesn't make any big claims about the value for your dollar. In the nineteen minutes I played, I genuinely enjoyed myself and found it to be a relaxing and serene experience of video game parkour. I can't recommend it for everyone, but for those who don't mind replaying simple platforming puzzles to some ambient trance techno music, $3 is a small price to pay for a quick and relaxing jaunt.
Do you agree or disagree? Tell me what you think in the comments!
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