Looking for your next couch co-op game to play with a friend or test the boundaries of your relationships? Enter All Hands On Deck, a cosy, co-operative puzzle-platformer, self-published and built primarily by a small Dutch development team, Studio Mantasaur. Released today, I’ll be taking a look at the Nintendo Switch version.
Lend Your Friend A Helping Hand
In a Children’s day care centre, plushie toys have gone missing from the toy box. It’s up to two handy friends. Lefty and Righty, to track them down and retrieve them. As this is a strictly 2-player co-op title, my partner and I joined hands and forces on the sofa to mount a daring rescue.
Gameplay
Each player controls a hand character, capable of switching between Rock, Paper, or Scissors. You’ll use these abilities to interact with various puzzle scenarios to progress through different levels, and finally free a trapped plush. As Rock you can punch objects, such as crates, to break them apart. While you are in Scissor shape, you can cut away at scenery and ropes to create new paths. Finally, as Paper, you can grab objects and interact with handles to move obstacles.
The puzzle and level design has been very clever. While maybe not entirely obvious at first, and with very little hand-holding — pardon the pun — some puzzles took us a bit of trial and error to solve. However, we were never stuck for long and it never felt frustrating.
I really enjoyed the combination of items and mechanics, and how solutions gradually grew more complex using the same set of tools. A great example of this is in the first world where you make use of an extending platform. One player holds the item and controls whether it extends upwards or forwards, and in which direction. The other player jumps on a the platform and can be hoisted into the air or thrust forwards across gaps. Eventually this evolves into clever ways or transporting both players across a gap, or pressing buttons using two platforms instead of one. Great stuff.
Collectables
As you explore each level you’ll be picking up coins. These can be used in a shop in the main hub to purchase cosmetic changes for you characters. You can change their colour, eyes, and mouth, and equip them with decorations such as finger-traps or glove hats.
Somewhere in each level you can also find a puzzle piece. Once collected, this will start a timer and reveal several more pieces that need to be collected within a set time. These quickly become quite challenging to complete, requiring both players to be involved in quick thinking and fast platforming or puzzle solving. The puzzle-piece collectathons add a nice change of pace as you make your way through the world.
Further hidden throughout each level you might find a couple of buttons of the clothing variety. My partner and I did a pretty good job and spotting and/or collecting the second button, and barely ever the first one. Not sure how we were so consistent at that!
Polish
As a debut game from a small studio, don’t expect All Hands On Deck to be an entirely smooth experience. We encountered a few small bugs while playing, which we were thankfully mostly able to work around without losing progress. The one time we did reset a level, we found it very easy to quickly retrace our solutions to get back to where we were.
The things that stand out most that make the game feel a little clunky are the general movement of the characters — turning and jumping — and the fixed camera. The camera in particular can lead to issues with depth perception. At times, we felt like we were battling with these elements as well as the puzzles. I think if you’re used to playing smaller, indie titles, you’ll get along fine, but if this is your first time playing a smaller budget game, have a little patience. It will be worth it.
Graphics & Audio
All Hands On Deck is presented is a charming, blocky, cartoon style, with worlds themed around children’s play areas and toys. I really loved the opening world hub where there’s a representation of a classic carpet or rug, that many millennials had as children, with cartoon roads and buildings on.
In the first world you’ll also notice toy cars and vans, alphabet blocks, and cardboard boxes. I think my favourite objects were the marble run tracks. They’re a very faithful recreation of a treasured childhood toy, and they’re creatively deployed in the puzzles too.
The music and audio in the game are as equally charming as the visuals. Backing tracks a themed to the environments and make for a pleasant accompaniment to your brain-cogs whirring and back-and-forth conversations on how you should tackle the next conundrum.
Longevity
The 8 hours stated in the All Hands On Deck press kit for the length of the game seems reasonable, if not an underestimate. As I often say when reviewing a puzzle game, it’s going to depend on how quickly you can figure out the puzzles. I mentioned earlier that the game is pretty light on advice and hints, so sometimes you may spend a bit of time scratching your head before you can make progress.
Ultimately, our longevity analysis is to give you an idea of ‘bang for your buck’. All Hands On Deck is certainly worth the price of entry.
Final Thoughts
It’s great to see more studios bringing cosy, fun, couch co-op titles to players. It’s been a fairly neglected genre. I feel many publishers focus on MOBAs, Military Sims, and Hero Shooters as the main multiplayer attractions. Thankfully, Studio Mantasaur have seen fit to grace us with a game for gaming couples, friends, or even parents and children.
I was impressed with the puzzle design throughout. Especially how different mechanics are introduced and eventually combined to make longer solutions which managed to stay pretty intuitive. If you can look past the slightly calloused skin, you’ll find yourselves in comforting hands. Don’t let this one slip through your fingers.
All Hands On Deck grabs itself a Thumb Culture Gold Award.
Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this review.
Got the co-op bug? Why not check out Split Fiction? You can read my review right here.
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