Fun game, but can be really frustrating, so best played in short bursts. The SURVIVED (i.e. You Win) screen tells me I played for 114 minutes and died 433 times, but it honestly felt a lot longer than that.

This is one of those twitch/punishment platformers, though it's not exactly a platformer since you control a floating ball that can move about freely without worrying about gravity. The goal is to make your way to the end of each of the levels without dying. There are no checkpoints, and but the levels is pretty short. Unlike other twitch platformers, you have a healthbar and most hazards will not kill you in one hit - being squished between moving walls/ is the common exception. Your health also decreases over time, so it serves as an implicit time limit even in the relatively few levels which don't have a huge moving wall (or Boss) chasing you. Boosting (i.e. "running") makes the health decrease much faster, so it's best used only when needed.

Each level has collectible "krebs", and getting all of these greatly increases the challenge, but they are only useful for high scores and achievements. After the first few levels, I stopped even trying collecting them all and focused instead on just surviving.

The game is HARD, and controls take a lot of getting used to. The keyboard offers the most precise controls, but unfortunately a bug keeps you from being able to boost (speed up) while moving diagonally up-left, which makes a few levels impossible. So yeah, that's definitely a minus. But the rest of the game makes up for it in my opinion. The gameplay, though frustrating, is still fun, I found the retro graphics quite nice, and the soundtrack is great. After finishing it, I spent some time going back to a few levels to unlock some achievements, and see myself coming back over time to unlock more.

For what little good I can say about Krunch I can say this: It has good music.

Everything else needs to be revisited... especially the controls. It's not that the controls are atrocious or impossible to master but rather the fact that the whole game revolves around avoiding monsters and obstacles with the only option to speed up, if the controls are not well adjusted and feel bulky players will turn their heads from the game and never look back. If the controls are to stay as they are then the game should take a different approach and maybe have less envirenmental hazards, more ennemies and a way to fight back.

Something else that I personally find undesirable is the visual style. The graphics give the impression that they didn't put too much efforts into the character design and the monochromatic abuse just underline this lack of savoir faire. Some games can pull this kind of stunt admirably and end up being enjoyable and fun to play ("Don't Look Back" or "Today I Die" are but two exemples of this) but with Krunch it just force me to look twice at everything and I end up wondering "Why is my character's vision so impaired... is it because he's some kind of robot?" or "That message was important but it looked just like it was part of the environment... who wrote it?" and I have played the early games of yore on my pc junior and my atari 3600 and never have graphical limitation been excused for poor visuals and a great exemple of what i'm saying would be "Out Of This World" since the game was limited in term of graphics like you can't comprehend and they still managed to deliver something that you can fell conected to when you play it to a point that you actually want to finish the game. Krunch visuals combined with the poor controls just make me want to never play the game again.

The game developers are relatively new in the game making business so, if you're listening... Egoraptor youtube channel, go watch his SEQUELITIS videos. You might learn a thing or two.

I originally recommended this game, but after the achievements not working, and then seeing the disgusting way the dev was treating their fans in the community discussion boards, I've decided I want nothing to do with this game or company.

http://steamcommunity.com/app/280500/discussions/0/558750985883896525/#p2

Note that link will not work because the devs deleted the entire thread and banned me from the forums in the process, just for saying they were being rude. Thanks for proving me right.

This is one of the best Indie games I have ever played, it's very hard so don't expect something easy, it reminds me the most of the old NES games where you probably had to lose 1,000 times before you figured out what you were doing wrong, but for that reason I love it, and then just beating the game isn't enough, which can be done in under an hour (my current run definitely agrees with this) but then you have the leaderboard to keep you hooked, every death loses points, every second, loses points and every kreb gains points, it's possible to get some pretty insane scores and to this day I never feel as if I've done my all time best run. this game takes skill, brains, and a lot of determination, but trust me if you're up for the challenge this is well worth your money

Honestly, Its not a hardcore game, it does not live up to the name of super meat boy, its a fun game to a point, but the floaty controls, without the precision i expect from a intense game, I want to be able to blame myself for dying, not bouncing off a wall or making that one pixel game in a time limit when I just float by it and bounce off the wall dying, fun game, but overall not what I expected

Short, but really fun and addictive. This game took me little over an hour of gameplay to complete, but it was really fun and challenging while it lasted. There were moments when I thought I'd never get past the area I was stuck on, but it had that sort of 'hard but not impossible' feel about the game. The soundtrack was a real nice addition as well and sounded reminiscent of the 16-Bit days. There's no telling how long the game will take you to complete, but there were certainly some challenging aspects of the game. In the right hands it could occupy a lot of your time, but either way I'd recommend it as a fun and addictive time passer.

Controls like balls and character bumps off of everything constantly. Not to mention that the hitbox is nowhere near accurate. Stupid gimmick to artificially lengthen gameplay ruins the pacing of the game. Great soundtrack and is aesthetically pleasing to look at despite the horrible controls.

horrible, frustrating, repetitive, irritating, and overall just a painful exercise in tedium.

did you love all those oldschool platform games on your console with the boss fights and then the scene where you had to run to escape the exploding level as fast as you could dodging falling walls and crushing traps before your character died?

how about an entire game where all you do is rush through the level racing against time as walls close in and gears and spikes get in your way?

yeah.. it's like someone decided to make a whole game out of 1 single aspect of platform games.

avoid if you have any interest in storylines or interesting gameplay mechanics.

KRUNCH is an amazing game. Do you like a challenge? Do you like feeling rewarded when you work really hard? Well then KRUNCH is for you. This game has amazing old school graphics and is a ton of fun to play. *** This game is a 10/10 ***

Love the graphics style, hate the fact that you're a rubber ball bouncing off every surface, and with the hitbox like Heavy's head from TF2. You think the levels are spacious but they're just not. Dying is just too frustrating and the rewards are minimal. A huge shame because the art style and music are both fantastic.

Controls are too imprecise for a game that needs perfectly tight controls. Also the pinball effect when hitting an obstacle means you almost always die if you hit anything.

Man what an amazing thrill i had with this game, from an artistic proportion mixed with a retro feeling.

This game is a call back to the old gaming eras back when games used to be hard and rewarding.

I was compelled to continue playing, this game may punish your mistakes just like Super meat boy but it is very forgiving and it is easy to learn and perfect.

Overall this game was intense to the very end, i had more fun than i had problem, my only gripe with this game would be that it felt abit short so i hoped for a Expansion or sequel because this game does deserve one. Big props for the creators.

Highly recomend this game!

If you like VVVVVV, you'll love this. Awesome soundtrack too.

KRUNCH is a fantastic indie action game, which plays like a precision racing game and brings to mind challenging platformers such as VVVVVV and Super Meat Boy. You will die a lot, but you'll learn from your mistakes, and soon you'll be zooming gracefully through the dangerous traps and enemies! Throw in an awesome soundtrack and visually appealing retro graphics, and KRUNCH makes for an excellent addition to your indie collection! Not to mention the devs have been nothing but friendly and very easy to communicate with!

General:
Do you like challenges? Then KRUNCH is for you. I would put it in the same box with the VVVVVV and Super Meat Boy because at some point it takes a lot of patience to get through the levels. This is by no mean a casual game so expect some cursing and sweating along the way.

While there are no checkpoints, levels are pretty short so you can easily play the game in 5 minutes break, which is great. Controls may seem a bit clunky at the start but you get used to them quite fast. Game offers 4 themes, each specializing in different kind of traps, mind breaking yet cool traps. Each one of them ends with a huge challenge - "run run run and don't hit the corner" type of a level.

Replay value:
For competing type of a person there is a highscore you can climb up to or you can earn some extra Achievements if you want extra challenges. Yes, there are reasons to play this game over and over again.

Bugs/Crashes encountered: None

Overall: 4-5 (on a scale from 1-5)

• Graphic: 5 (Really nice pixel art with great effects)
  
• Music & Sound effects: 5 (Music works just great)
  
• Gameplay: 4 (Gameplay is really fun but sometimes you'll just get deadlocked with all the bumping)
  
• Other: 4 (Unclean interface - how to toggle fullscreen? How to return to the main menu from the game?)

Krunch is the game you say 'one more level' to. Then you do five more and try to think about stopping—yet you just keep blazing through levels and tryin' again. Its hard, but not impossible by any means. This is one of those games for the people who thrive off the rush of finally getting that hard thing down(it may take you fifty tries, but its all the more sweet!).

Yes, the hitboxes can seem ridiculous but its a pixel game. And awesome pixel game with a great soundtrack and visuals.

Krunch makes it pretty clear its your fault when you lose—and when you win. Krunch is krack.

Enjoyably hardcore!

To start: I used to add a header to these reviews, but since it often made the reviews too long to submit, I've opted to leave it on my Backloggery page. Shouldn't happen here, but I've always been one for both consistency and efficiency.

Gameplay: Krunch is one of those games which you can pretty much sum up all of the gameplay in a serntence. It's a game where you have full vertical and horizontal control of a sphere in which your objective is to get to the goal without dying. You also have a run button, but this should only be used sparingly or whenever you are confident in your current health, since "running" consumes HP. After a set point of HP loss, you can't run anymore, so you need to use it intelligently.

It's also rather difficult to talk about the levels without an initial comparison to Super Meat Boy, since the levels are pretty challenging and pretty short. While the game doesn't immediately show you initial times after you beat the levels, they are visible once you go to the level select screen, so it's not too much of a hassle. Also within these stages are Krebs, or what are basically coins that you can collect for additional score. They aren't necessary and are only there for the challenge, but I can appreciate it nonetheless. Regarding the challenge of the levels and also comparing it to Super Meat Boy, the game starts off at roughly Light World Hospital and ends up about halfway through Light World Hell. So basically, the game is challenging, but never to the point where you'll want to stop playing. Much like Super Meat Boy, there are plenty of obstacles within the four worlds and are generally used pretty creatively without ever really feeling cheap.

One of the things that a reviewer complained about in this game is the fact that once you run into a wall, you bounce off of it. I don't have a problem with that, as it encourages precision gameplay over reflexes. That's not to say that reflexes aren't useful, but the game does force you to play a little more carefully than you may expect. The only thing that I can kinda complain about is that the hitboxes sometimes felt a little finicky, specifically with the bombs. Other than that, pretty much every death in this game will be your fault. Just the way it should be.

Overall, I can see a lot of both replay value and speedrunning potential for this game. Even for a normal person, it's a nice time killer. $10 may be a bit much given the fact that it can be beaten in an hour and a half, and I do somewhat agree (I picked this up in a Humble Bundle a while back), but on sale for something like $5 and I'd definitely say this game is worth the asking price. 8/10.

Story: There really isn't much here, but the comic you do get with the Digital Collector's Edition is quite nice. Not worth reviewing.

Graphics: A lot of effort has been put into this game, and it shows. The graphics style is basically if you take a Gameboy game and apply different color filters to it. The pixel art is great and has a great deal of detail, the boss design is great, and the game just looks all around great. In fact, my only gripe is that level names can be hard to read at times. That's really it. As far as the technical things go, the game launches in a 1280x720 splash screen and then fullsizes to your native resolution. You can play this game in windowed mode if you're into that sort of thing simply by pausing and pushing Y on your 360 controller (don't know the corresponding keyboard command, although I'd imagine Alt-Enter would work just fine). Overall, there was a lot of work put into the graphics for this game, and it's one of those games that just looks good irrespective of the visual style. 5/5.

Sound: Pretty much just music here, and I've gotta say that the music is pretty rad. A couple of standout tracks are the Boiler track (Ignition) and the last track of the soundtrack (ESCAPE). I'd give these a listen on Youtube beforehand to decide whether or not you'd be interested in giving the five dollars extra for it. I find it hard to say, since I once again got it in a Humble Bundle. However, irrespective of what version you get, the soundtrack is pretty good with more than a few pretty memorable tracks out of the bunch of 11. 4/5.

Overall scores are: 8/0/5/4; cumulative score of 8.5/10. A pretty rad game overall, although the price may be a bit steep for you. Just use your discretion, folks.

I wanted to like this game, But I can't. The reason that "Super Meat Boy" (Krunch often getting compare to SMB) is so damn good is because the controls are incredibly presice. I can't say the same for Krunch. The control of your character is very, keyboard very, floaty. Your chatacter has too much weightlessness and momentum. making precise turning and timing way more difficult that they need to be. IE in SMB if you fked up it was your fault because you have such clear control over your character. Here not so much. Also SMB have very clear and obvious hitboxes on the traps which men't you could avoid them. Here the spining saw traps (that are circles) have square hit boxes so you can be quite clearly not touching them and get bounched back and killed for no good reason. When i played SMB i would get frusterated at myself for losing, then try and do better. In Krunch I Get fruterated at the game because I don't feel like I am in propor contol of my character.

TL:DR Imprecise floaty controls, and bad hitboxes make for a bad time, AVOID this game!

KRUNCH is a game about guiding flying orbs through a series of mazes, with the goal of escaping the factory. There are around 100 levels divided between 4 zones with a boss encounter at the end. Speed and precision are required for sucess. The soundtrack and visuals add greatly to the game's appeal. The controls take a bit to get use to, but once you do they are fine. It is a bit short, but if you aim to collect some the achievements, you will spend more time in the game.

Originally I didn't think I was going to like the game very much, but I returened for the card drops and ended up having a great time.