Ladder Lad Preview: Climbing High | The Gamerheads Podcast

Could a platformer where you don’t jump work? Well, that’s exactly what Ladder Lad sets out to answer. And the short answer is: absolutely.

If you’re not familiar with developer Buck Studios and music studio Antfood, their previous title, Let’s! Revolution!, received one of our Best of PAX awards. What caught our attention was the puzzle design and the animation. Ladder Lad certainly builds upon that. The hand-drawn art, character design, and animation are so smooth and beautiful. Since Ladder Lad is a platformer, the motion and fluidity of the character really shine through and make the game feel solid.

I’ve said it’s a platformer, and that’s technically true. However, I wouldn’t fault anyone for saying it’s a puzzle game. The game requires Ladder Lad, the titular hero, to take a ladder and place it in different locations to make it to the end of the level. Seems simple enough, but there are different traps that I need to avoid to succeed.

This is where the puzzle aspect comes in. The game introduces me to new concepts like “hey, if you put the ladder on its side, you can climb across it like a bridge” or “if you lean when you are on the ladder, you can make the ladder tip over.” The first time I’m introduced to a new way to use the ladder, it’s a pretty simple task. But as I progress, I have to apply the techniques in more challenging ways. What if I had to place that bridge on moving platforms, or what if I had to lean to fall between two spinning poles of fire?

There were moments of trial and error, especially when I had to be quick to navigate across several different moving objects and platforms, but I was never frustrated. This is due in large part to the fact that there are checkpoints in the level. Without them, I would have probably been much more irritated.

Besides just the standard challenge of making it through the level, the game also has hidden scarabs, which require more problem-solving to obtain. I tried to obtain most of these in each level of the demo, but there were some I just left behind, knowing that I was happy with the progress I made and would come back to 100% the level at some point.

I can’t wait for the full release of Ladder Lad. It’s one of those games that plays so brilliantly that I ask, “Why hasn’t this been done before?”

Preview code provided by Stride PR