The Last Geek–the number seven spot from the top fifty Ludum Dare 22 winners–is quite impressive, but I don’t like it. Made by Robotic, this challenging run and jump and escape death by a fraction of a centimeter platformer certainly wears its influences proudly for all to see. And that’s kind of funny, considering the main character, the titular last geek, is naked save for a scarf and a generously placed leaf. But yeah, this is another take on Super Meat Boy and I Wanna Be the Guy, where gameplay is punishing and controls are crisp, requiring precise timing and endurance and quick reflexes. Alas, I’m terrible at those kind of games, being not quick enough to wall-jump my way to safety let alone make it to the tea kettle in time before it starts shrieking.
Okay, so in The Last Geek, there’s a story. No, really. It’s completely random and amorphous, told with some mediocre drawings that go by a little too fast to actually be read, all leading to our nudist stumbling across the factory of a mad scientist who is harvesting body parts. For what? Your guess is as good as mine. World domination, probably. This is a neat story device though that it makes for great division, devoting a room to each body part. Eyes, arms, legs, a heart, a soul, and more. The last geek must remake a girl to repopulate Earth, I guess.
Unfortunately, out of all the The Last Geek‘s rooms, I could only complete one of them, earning a single body part: the left arm. A nice touch in the game is that your dead forms remain on the spikes, often leading to a room filled with multiple versions of the last geek, all dead, all pierced and poised. At one point, I tried to make enough piles of myself on a set of spikes to be able to safely jump on them and get across a tricky gap. Didn’t work. I know, I know. I am teh suckiest. But it’s hard as heck to wall-jump using only the directional buttons and avoid buzzsaws of death. You try it. No, I insist. Go here and try it.
Grinding Down 
Haha, thank you for testing my game, I lol’d just as I saw the “jump die jump die”. Actually I didn’t want to make the controls so frustrating, when I started playing it I became used to the controls and in the end I could finish every level, because I had played it so many times. But then, one week later without playing it hit me that the maniability sucks.
No problem! I totally dug the idea of each room being tied to a body part, but I just wasn’t very good at maneuvering through the levels. Still, nice job. 😀
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