Do you know the scene from Happy Gilmore, where Happy yells at the ball after he fails to sink the putt?
“Are you too good for your home? Answer me!”
GloGo by Accordion Games is the video game version of that scene.
Released in January 2018, GloGo is an arcade, puzzle game where the player sends the ball toward its hole (a.k.a home) at the end of the level as fast as possible. Players are the ball, using a keyboard or joystick to control it. Obstacles, such as holes, walls and moving blocks, add difficulty and ensure the “way home” isn’t a straight line. The game is a neat concept, but at times so frustrating, you want to punch that guy too.
And GloGo knows it. Rage quitting is one of the Steam achievements.
The Environment Isn’t the Problem
GloGo and Accordion Games nail the aesthetic. No frustration here.
The music is perfect for GloGo, reflecting the concept’s simplicity while adding flair when the game’s objective never changes. Each level has its own track, but the entire soundtrack is dubstep, so I don’t recommend this game if you hate electronic music. However, the music doesn’t get in the way of the gameplay. Players can easily spend 20 minutes on a level going for the fastest time possible, and the music doesn’t distract or get stuck in your head.
The neon color scheme is also a great choice. The bright colors add pizzaz but also make it easy to see the obstacles. I also like that certain objects are always specific colors. The ramps are green, the moving blocks are blue, the ball is white. The neon colors also contrast well against the white ball and black floor. Everything in the game is easy to see and identify; there’s no confusion about what obstacle is coming up.
The Platinum is a Lie
Ultimately, GloGo doesn’t get a higher rating because it doesn’t have a good balance between speed and precision. Level 11, for example, requires so much precision that players need to complete the level several times before thinking about how to do the level faster. Yet, Level 11 is full of jumps where the player won’t clear the jump if they’re not going fast enough. Ultimately, there isn’t much room for players to learn and master levels at their own pace. This can make getting through some levels infuriating.
The platinum times are just about impossible to get. For each level, there are five awards: participation, bronze, silver, gold, and platinum. Any time matching the participation time or slower earns a participation trophy. In the above photo, to earn bronze, the player needs a time of 20 or 21 seconds. Under 20 seconds earns silver, while a 22-second time will earn the participation trophy.
There are Steam achievements for platinum times that no player has achieved yet. Level 1 has a platinum time of 7 seconds, meaning to get the platinum award, players have to complete the level in under 7 seconds. Six seconds may seem easy but unlike Level 11, there’s not much precision to Level 1. It has a straightforward solution, the ball also only goes so fast, and the levels do not provide speed boosts. GloGo consists of 16 levels, four sets of four. The difficulty progression is somewhat steep, but that’s expected with only 16 levels. Each level, after the initial learning phase, takes between 10 to 60 seconds to complete. So, finding another second to cut out of seven is tough to do.
Something else GloGo is missing that would greatly improve the experience is an options menu. For example, I would love an options menu to turn off the tutorial messages that come up throughout the first few levels. The messages are helpful for my first playthrough, but break the immersion when I’m trying so very hard to hit platinum-level times.
The Final Putt
Overall, GloGo is a neat concept that invigorates the purest of tryhards and satisfies some casual gamers. For me, I don’t want to quit GloGo because if I quit, the game wins. It’s a one-player game meant and designed to be beaten. If I can’t beat it, who can? But, completing a game so the game doesn’t win isn’t a very compelling reason to play. Knowing how unforgiving it is to learn each level, I don’t look forward to it and I don’t expect many other players to look forward to it either.
