BattleBlock Theater Torrent is an action game developed and published by The Behemoth. Flash games aren’t the crucible of indie talent that they once were, but Battleblock Theater carries the legacy of those idyllic days. The technology might have evolved, but this is a game from the culture that brought forth Meat Boy and N+. It’s by The Behemoth, the creators of Alien Hominid and Castle Crashers, and it signifies a transformative shift in how much indie developers can accomplish with a single game. It’s a platform adventure, a co-op versus multiplayer game, a creative suite, and a comedy performance.
You’re an unidentified plump prisoner, stranded in a dilapidated theater run by felines under the influence of a possessed hat; felines who construct perilous platform challenges from blocks and make prisoners as you navigate them for amusement. In the standard game, the objective is to amass gems to unlock the exit while searching for bonus gems and balls of golden yarn to unlock new weapons and unlockable bonus heads for your character. Progression involves a blend of swift, precise movement—your abilities encompass double jumping, wall jumping, sliding, and dashing—and puzzle-solving based on the blocks you encounter.
What distinguishes BattleBlock Theater Torrent Magnet, firstly, is that its levels are contraptions. Blocks interact with one another following a consistent internal logic, and this logic is exploited to create challenges that the player can manipulate. You might come across a platform that fades in and out of existence on a regular timer—but this timer isn’t dictated by some concealed clock.
It’s determined by a laser block, positioned elsewhere in the level, that periodically fires at a switch block triggering the platform. Block the laser at the right time, and you can prevent the beam from hitting the switch, halting the vanishing platform from disappearing—and so forth. You’ll solve numerous puzzles like this throughout the adventure, and a comprehensive block-based level editor amplifies the potential challenge exponentially.
The presentation is exceptional. BattleBlock Theater Torrent is an extremely humorous, sharply scripted game, narrated with tremendous energy. Puppet theater cutscenes bring a grin to your face, and sporadic lines of voiceover maintain it. Then there are the outstanding songs, especially the amusing, nonsensical scatting accompanying secret levels. There’s a lot of The Muppets in Battleblock Theater, in the most favorable sense.
Playing the story levels in co-op is unfortunately less enjoyable than playing solo. Characters tend to get entangled, and while specific areas are altered so that you can boost, pull, or throw your partner, the gameplay benefit isn’t sufficient to compensate for the less polished focus.
The camera sways in and out to keep both players on screen, and coordinating movements can become a hassle rather than a delight. Played in tandem, the game simply sheds enough of the grace and flow that makes the single-player experience shine, making cooperative play the second-best option when it should be the crowning achievement.
BattleBlock Theater Torrent System Requirements
- OS: Windows XP/7/8/10/11
- Processor: 2.8 GHz Intel Core2 Duo
- Memory: 1 GB RAM
- Graphics: 512 MB
- DirectX: Version 10
- Storage: 2 GB available space
