Some people bash their heads against difficult games for glory or loot, but I’m just trying to survive Awaria so I can kiss another ghost. Łukasz “Vanripper” Piskorz, the developer behind the cult hit Helltakeris back with even more cute girls dangling in front of you in a game designed to make you work for it.
Awaria is up for free Steam And Jeuk.iobut scoring a hug from one of his ghost girls certainly isn’t. Like Helltaker, Awaria looks deceptively simple: you’re a fast little mechanic stuck in 2D rooms with machines in need of repair. WASD controls move you as you carry the right parts to the right machines. And then ghosts appear and try to kill you and suddenly you’re dodging attacks like in a bullet shooter.
Your job would be quite simple if the phantom ladies weren’t trying to deceive you. Awaria reminds me of playing Overcooked. The machines are hungry customers, begging for the right item to satisfy them, and it’s up to you to feed them. But you’re just a vulnerable girl who falls to her knees when one of these evil girls touches you, so the machines have to wait while you lure the ghost girls around and dodge their attacks. Everyone who was forged in the fire of from Undertale boss battles will thrive here. I wouldn’t have given up and probably would have given up if each level didn’t end with the declaration that you are “READY TO KISS.”
These victory scenes reveal what’s going on with each ghost girl and how they respond to a quick kiss on the cheek. Zmora, who you meet in the first level, is completely nervous. “Next time the shields fall, you will pay,” she threatens as the tsundere alarm goes off. Cutwire leans in and promises you she’ll come back to “stab you in the back.” And Nikita towers over you and calls you small. Awaria has something for everyone.
Eventually, the girls decide that it’s actually fun to torment you, and work together to make you squirm. I wasn’t equipped to handle two at once and surrendered after completing a handful of levels. You can lower the difficulty to easy and take a few more hits, or you can turn the difficulty up higher than normal and see how long you can last with a stricter time limit and machines that are constantly breaking.
Helltaker gave you a secret ending for finding hidden keys in the levels and I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s more to it Awaria than it seems. There were no dialogue options or branching paths in what I played, but the achievement list suggests that the most skillful players can be rewarded for their efforts. I’m inclined to see what that is, if only because the game is so tough to play. Restarting a level is instantaneous and the throbbing soundtrack plays by Mittens pulls you right back in every time.
Every ghost girl is destined to be someone’s favorite, even if I don’t find their character designs as personally focused as the demon girls in Helltaker. It’s possible I just didn’t find it Awarias equal to Cerberus anyway, and I’m sorry to all my friends on Discord who expect me to talk about something else when that happens. I guess I’ll just have to let these women boss me around for a while to find out.