Act: Stair Dismount [by tAAt]

There are games that I play that make me happy to be doing the Independent side of gaming.  Games that you know would not exist at all if we didn't have the internet and lots of little developers who were doing their best to provide entertainment to the smaller "masses."  Stair Dismount is certainly one of those games.  This game is perfect for anyone who has ever wanted to push someone down the stairs.

Ok, so you probably don't go around thinking about who you are going to push down the stairs, which is a good thing.  Stair Dismount is actually a wonderful game though, even if you consider the premise a little morbid.  (and if you think this is morbid, wait until I review their other game, Truck Dismount)

The idea behind the game is to get the most points possible by knocking someone down the stairs.  You knock them down by choosing where they will be hit on their body from 13 different points.  You also chose the angle and pitch that they will be hit from and finally how hard they will be hit. 

The real wonder of the game is the physics engine and how well the character reacts to the blow that you give.  Body parts fly in all different directions as the character starts to fall, hitting its body on stairs and then flipping head over heals through the air and landing on a different part of the body.

Your goal in the game is to cause as much damage to the person as possible.  After knocking the character down, you'll see the 13 points of the body keeping track of how much damage has been done to that point.  To create the most damage to the body you'll need to carefully choose your angle to create the worst possible fall. 

There is certainly some evil pleasure in watching someone really biff it as they come down the stairs, and that is really one of the most charming things about Stair Dismount.  The graphics are mostly based on primitives, so the character itself looks like a less defined crash test dummy than it does like a person.  Overall the graphics are very simple, but the fantastic effects of the physics more than makes up for that as the persons limbs moving all over the screen is great to watch as the person is in motion.  The music and sounds are a nice addition to making the game feel more "finished," though the music doesn't really offer all that much and you will likely turn it off quickly.

Unfortunately the online hi-score list hasn't yet been implemented in this version, so you cannot check your scores against others to see who is the best at this morbid art, but you can play against yourself, watching your character go down the stairs in the most terrific of falls over and over again.
 

Added: January 6th 2004
Reviewer: Russell Carroll
Score:
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