It's that time again! No, not half past ten, time for a mini-review. Flywrench, or FLYWRENCH if you insist on shouting things, is an indie game from messhof, maker of many small little games with bright, glowing, retro style graphics. The premise of the game is quite simple; Get your little flywrench ship/thing from the beginning of the level to the end, by flapping your wings (Or lines?) to fly.

It's not quite as simple as that though. Each level is filled with barriers of various colours, some of which can only be passed through when your flywrench is in a certain state. Red barriers can only be passed through when your wings are kept folded in after being flapped (By holding the Up key), white can only be passed through when you are simply falling without flapping, and green can only be passed through when your ship is spinning (By holding the Down arrow key). A single touch of any of these barriers, or any of the level walls, when not in the right state will destroy your ship instantly and send you back to the beginning of the level. Thankfully you respawn quickly enough that you don't get frustrated by having to wait for ages, but it can occasionally leave you not ready for what's coming and have you die again straight away.

My only gripe with the controls is that it would be nice to have some way to slow down your ascent, as there were many times I ended up drifting into the roof of a level after flapping one time too many, but I guess that's all part of the very skill-driven and twitchy style of the game. The controls are really easy to get used to, and it only uses the four arrow keys, so it's certainly not over-complicating things.

The levels increase in difficulty quickly and you'll soon have to be flapping, spinning and diving through barriers with incredible accuracy, while all the time trying not to hit the walls too. It's quick frantic and fast paced and it's a shame it's not longer than it is, since there are only 9 'planets', each with a few levels. It is very brief, but it's good fun while it lasts and has a very annoyingly addictive 'one more try!' quality to it. Plus, if you manage to complete it in one you'll probably have been driven mad by the 'music' played throughout the game, so that might force you to play it in little chunks. It's free to download from the maker's website, so there's no reason not to try it out and become addicted!




FLYWRENCH download page