QCF: Life Goes On

ired of survival horror, first person shooters, and basically every other video game forcing you to stay alive in order to play? Life Goes On takes the conventional gaming strategy of trying to survive as long as possible and turns it around - to beat the levels, you have to kill your character several times, and use their corpses as stepping stones to get to the prize. Morbid? Yes. A metaphor for capitalist society—possibly…but aside from being an interactive existential social commentary on our pointless lives, it can also refreshing and fun.

Life Goes On is a strategic puzzle game in which you control a knight whose goal is to reach the Cup of Life, but there are obstacles such as spikes, lava, ice, and more in the way. In each level, you’re given a time challenge and a death minimum to aim for - the less knights you kill, the better, so you’ll need to be creative.  The only way to pass these obstacles is to kill your character in a strategic place. When one knight dies, another spawns who will then carry on the quest, usually using the last knight’s body to their advantage to move forward. Upon completion of each level, you’ll get a lovely victory message and will see your champion knight wheeling off the bodies of his fallen predecessors in a wheelbarrow...but I promise, it’s fun.

This game is endearing from the get go - the music is uplifting and almost optimistic, setting the mood for a light jaunt. The knights are cute, each one with a unique name (watch the names get scratched out as they die). Rather than present itself as a somber game of cutthroat murder, Life Goes On is lighthearted and playful.

The controls are incredibly simple –forwards, backwards, and jump. It’s got a quick learning curve and would be easy for even the most novice gamer to play. Graphically, Life Goes On delivers a simple interface with cute, cartoon-like characters. The stylistic choices really shape the feel of the game; if they’d opted for realistic knights and tons of gore, it would have lost all the fun. The simplistic style is reminiscent of a mobile game, and it would probably work well on that format.

After playing a few levels, I found myself nearly obligated to call a friend over to try it - it’s frustratingly fun trying to figure out all the levels. The different challenges in each level keep it fresh, although with the repeated elements it is easy to go back to a level later and replay it without necessarily remembering exactly what you have to do. Life Goes On is addictive  (the knights made a few appearances in my dreams after I played for too long); your pride takes over as you kill each knight and want to beat just one more level before logging off. 

You can’t skip ahead, you have to beat each level before you can proceed, which does limit gameplay quite a lot; after failing a certain level repeatedly, it can get repetitive and a rage-quit break is necessary to reset your approach. The levels do get quite challenging but the gratification of finally winning is pretty sweet. 

Overall, it’s a simple game that’s easy for anyone to play, though the mandatory level completion may wear thin on some easily frustrated folks. The morbid concept is both enhanced and toned down by the cheery music, cartoon-like graphics, and lack of gore. Most of all, Life Goes On is just fun - the kind of fun that you want to share with your friends and replay until you beat all the challenges. This game is original, it’s endearing, and I want you to play it.