Game Reviews

Faif

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Faif
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Faif is that rarest of things: a game jam project polished and released as a commercial product.

As you might expect with that pedigree, it's extremely simple. You're presented with a grid of tiles consisting of swords, skulls, hearts, and gems from which you must select five consecutively.

The game then picks one at random. A sword hits your opponent with damage equal to the skulls in your selection, skulls damage you, hearts increase your health, and gems are a currency to spend on power-ups.

The idea is to face off against a series of increasingly tough (with 'tough' in this case translating to 'more life') computer opponents with silly randomly generated names to see how far you can go before running out of health.

It's a sort of swords and sorcery slot machine.

Time to Die

For all that you're ultimately dependent on the spin of a reel, it's got a fun vibe about it, an insouciant swagger of easy gameplay with just the lightest crust of strategy to keep you engaged. Viewed purely as a quick time-waster, it could be pretty cool.

But the problem is that it's not quick enough to be a quick time-waster. A battle can last a couple of minutes - maybe more if the reels fall oddly.

Once you've knocked up a winning streak more than five or six opponents long, trying to beat it starts to involve a more substantial time commitment. And without a story, or the draw of random loot, Faif just isn't interesting enough to play for that long.

There's an autosave feature so you can play in bite-size chunks if necessary, but that lacks rhythm. The product of this jam might seem sweet at first, but there are burnt bits lurking at the bottom of the pan.

Faif

Super light strategy leads to super accessibility but also super shallow gameplay
Score
Matt Thrower
Matt Thrower
Matt is a freelance arranger of words concerning boardgames and video games. He's appeared on IGN, PC Gamer, Gamezebo, and others.