Punch Bears

[ThatMaestroGuy]

I've been seeing this Bear-Punching business around for a while, but I never got into why. I'll have to try this game out and see just what exactly all the fuss is about! XD

 

[Makio-Kuta]

I hope you enjoy it! And if you don't enjoy it, I hope you take out your frustrations by punching even more bears. heh

 

[Tuomo L]

I hope you like what I did Makio because it took me a long time. 

 

[Maxjonathay]

Hello, my name is Jonathan and i'm here asking permission to translate this game to Brazilian Portuguese.

 

[Zealous Prism]

It has a nice plot and sometimes makes you wanna cry

on a serious note it's funny and hell YOU GET TO PUNCH BEARS!

 

[_Shadow_]

Thanks to 

djDarkX
who put a link on his signature to this fantastic game,

i played it.

I feel and am a better man now!

Thanks djDarkX!

 

[_Shadow_]

Eight months later.....

Spoiler

 

Disclaimer: Well... I try to make a humorous review of this game so keep that in mind.

The download was 21MB but it took forever because some bears were punching each other inside the internet line I guess and created a heavy traffic incident. Ok let's get serious. The download link was slow, because transfering a game containing so many bears is not easy. It is a heavy game.

This game changed my life.

It made me a better man!

Have you ever actually punched a bear?

No seriously people, I am gonna review this masterpiece with a five hundred words review and five hundered won't be really enough words to express the glory and magnificence of that game!

It made me a better man!

 

the game starts with a really epic way. The intro artwork is fantastic and the presentation shows that this game will change your miserable daily routine. It is here to make the difference. Then music starts and oh... that face and those fearless eyes of that woman. I have to start the game already!

It's been 8 months since the first time I played. It is still fresh!

 

 

Oh yes, that room! That wooden small room I became a man! Punching bears.

Every time something was wrong in real life, I was loading this game, and I was punching bears standing unbroken on lava! I was a woman in game, but still i was more man than I was berofe playing it!

This game prepared me for life! I fear nothing. If I will face something that sucks in life, when I will be back home... I will be punching bears!

 

The hero's hit points are over 9 thousand!

After beating the game once you unlock the true potential of that game!

The INFINITE MODE!

That's why this game does not download fast. It has infinite mass, cause it contains infinite bears!

You can punch bears all day and all night long!

This is the best game ever!

Just play for a short period of time.

Use your bare hands to punch bears.

See the magnificent fantastic graphics that VX Ace creates.

Who wants 3D games when you can punch bears with more that 40.000 damage per bear!

Chuck approves this game!

A mono room game, meaning that the whole action happens in a multi dimentional room!

One room.

One map!

Infinite bears!

One does not simply ignores such a game!

Especially after playing it for several hours! 

Are you tired of your job?

Are you bored to death? 

Take this game with you and punch bears everywhere!

You can be sittin on a toilet and punch bears instead of taking a video of yourself that might later go viral!

I can't believe I did this! I just reviewed the most epic game in the whole forum.

Now stop reading and download the game. Join us and enjoy the most epic and strong game on this forum! Become the fearless persona you always wanted. Join us to this stress relief experience.

 

The game is consistent, it has nice music selections, it has a plot twist, a story and plenty of bears to fight.

Okay it can be considered small but that's it. The game is still awesome.

 

[Tuomo L]

Here is a review I made earlier with better formatting and such and posted in here.

Life can be very boring and depressing if you really think about it. Mundane tasks seem to pile up and many people question what the meaning of life is, without ever getting the answer. To combat this repetitive nature of our everyday life, many do engage in a roleplay because after all, can you honestly say that for a little bit in your life, you never wished you'd live an entirely another sort of a life? 
 

 

Plot 

This one is really tough one, so let me take a deep breath and try and explain it. 

The game tells a story about Ulrika, a woman who's days are very unfulfilling and sad, her stating how her days suck. However, while her normal life sucks, in her dreams she's a mighty woman, able to literally kill a mighty Grizzly with a single punch! She's simply said, invincible and unable to be hurt even by the mightiest beasts, able to do whatever she wants and take out her stress on mighty bears. 
 



author=Ulrika


Punching bears is very relaxing.

Ulrika's fantasy is all in her head and it's acknowledged from the very start, it is not a huge twist at the end that is was all a dream in her head like most games of its nature. No, instead the way how she handles the whole it being dream is what really makes the game stand out, she embraces this as moment of being able to be this amazing avatar of bear punchery as her only thing that is exciting in her life. The only thing that keeps her going. 

The whole game takes place only in one single confined room, with no escape or end in sight with the only thing you able to do is contemplate on your life or punch bears. In many games, this would make Ulrika a huge tormented soul with tragic past and while this may or may not be true, the game never shoves it in your face and lets the player draw their own conclusions. 
 

 

In the end honestly, Ulrika seems to go a bit of insane and does in fact not be able to cope that she has to wake, wanting more bears when there is no longer even bears to punch. It's a stirring statement of being so lost in a fantasy that one can no longer even cope with a reality when it dawns upon us. 

Something a bit disturbing is that Ulrika seems to break away from her insanity when she's being asked nicely, as if all this time all she really wanted was someone to just be kind to her. 

Gameplay 

The gameplay mostly consists of utilizing the regular battle system with several minor tweaks to it, such as how Ulrika says random things before the fighting new set of bears. It's much appreciated but there could be more lines added, as there's just four so chances of one repeating several times is somewhat high. Even boosting it to just seven or so would cause more variety. 

Speaking of variety, aside the final boss and the bonus round, there are only one type of bears; grizzlies. While Grizzlies are known for their ferocity and such, I just can't but wonder why couldn't there be included other sorts of bears, Pandas, heck Polar Bears? Even if they would be the same monster but just different graphics would help spruce up the combat since it's such a big part of the game and the main focus of the game. 

The gameplay mostly as it is now consists of fighting a random number of bears whenever you're ready, you take a short break and then you fight another random order of bears. The only real difference are the final boss and the secret "Magical Bears" bonus round but mostly the purpose of this game is to punch bears a lot, much like the game's name would suggest. You can pretty much kill bears with one move and can hit all bears at the same time with a special skill, too bad there's only two bears on screen at the time due to their size so it gives a somewhat weird "pop in" effect and so you cannot hit more than two at the same time. Four or even three at once could have been a better choice but maybe this was actually done on purpose to avoid using the special skill to literally end the combat too soon? 


Something that could be added to add in? Bear counter, which counts how many bears have been beaten in game. Not only would it be fun to see, it could actually inspire someone to play just a bit more to see it go bigger, just to punch two more bears out. Never understimate the power of being able to see numbers grow bigger by doing reduntantry tasks, just look at cookie clicker and how big that got witht extremely basic and reduntatry task. 

Presentation 

Graphically speaking, the charasets and the tilesets are RTP but everything else is not, Ulrika herself has a very good faceset and his only human friend in the world Ralph has also good emotionset as well as his final form. The room you play in is not bad looking room actually and does make good use of RTP to its effect. 

Music and audio is all done in a RTP and it does its job, it doesn't stand out but at least the songs are actually quite fitting for what they're trying to do and that is to get you in the mood of punch bears. The game runs without adding RTP, which is always a positive and helps reach bigger audiences. 

Extra 

While obviously meant as a joke, this game actually raises much more provocative and thought rising questions that not many pseudo intellect and supposedly serious games could ever hope to achieve. It takes a look at one girl's fantasy, as silly as it may be for you, it is clearly the only thing as witnessed throughout the game that keeps her going. In fact, she even states that she does this to ease many pains and has done for very long and will most likely continue to do so in future, as it's her way of coping with her sanity. 
 



author=Ulrika


I will continue to punch bears for as long as I want.

Is Ulrika insane or has she just learnt a way to relieve the stress of her everyday life and just doing what she likes to do, without actually even hurting anyone since the bears themselves are also part of her imagination? Can we fault her for wanting to be different, even if it is just in her imagination and never fulfilled in real life ? Maybe this is for the best and should never be actually fulfilled, since she most likely would be killed in real life if she were to punch a bear? 

Final thoughts 

While not a game in the traditional sense as it involves very little gameplay aside the forementioned Bear punching which to some may get repetitive, the game does actually provide you not only with what it promises (You get to punch bears) but leaves something for you to think about after all is said and done and I can applaud any game, as simple as they can be that can do so. And there is one thing that really nails this whole fantasy thing down. 

You never see Ulrika's normal everyday life and it is in fact never even mentioned. She could be in asylumn or she could be the president. For all we know, she could be a lonely man stuck on a deadend job and with wife he no longer loves or a woman who is struggling everyday. Everything is left up in the air as in the end she returns to reality but even then it's acknowledged that she will return and most likely, very soon and the only thing we are told of the reality is that she wants to return back to her fantasy. Ulrika is a tortured, sad soul but we never dwell on the sadness because that would not make for an entertaining game to hear someone mope about their sadness and learning to love again or some stupidness like that like in majority of rpgs you can play. 

In fact as a final food for thought and letting you draw the comparisions in your mind, the maker himself mentions in the dev blog that he wanted to create something to get his stress off and feel good about doing something really amazing such as being able to punch bears and kill them with barefists. 

 Maybe there is a bit of a Bear Basher in all of us.

Score: Rank A , must try game.

 

[Chester]

Punch First! Ask Questions while Punching!

PS I will try it out.

 

[Clord]

I attempt to bear this and make a review.





Your eventual win condition is to knock out all the bears by punching them. You can achieve it by automating the process by external means or just spending a lot of time manually doing it. The game doesn't much explain the world and area of gameplay is a whole room and ability to punch bears by talking to that mad NPC!


What makes this better than games such as All The Bravest is that it doesn't expect you to pay to access all the content while having basically almost no gameplay to speak of. Also author of the game actually has no delusions of thinking that it is a game enough good to expect to be charged for.


Pros

• Bears and even more bears!
• Absurd yet well executed concept.
• Doesn't take itself too seriously.

Cons

• As fun it is, there is not much to play.
• It drags on and on and on...
• Diversity of the bear species has not been well presented (Polar Bears?)

 

[Makio-Kuta]

Thank you for the review. Though I'm a bit confused why part of the review mentioned free to play and not charging for the game and such things. There was never any intent, nor any mention by me or other people, for this game to ever be a commercial game? That part of the review seems to come out of the blue.

Anyway, thanks again!

 

[kerbonklin]

I hope you like what I did Makio because it took me a long time. 

Oh my god, this is genius. The texture importing ability in this game makes for so, so, SO MANY possibilities.

Should totally do a Ralph skin.

 

[Clord]

Thank you for the review. Though I'm a bit confused why part of the review mentioned free to play and not charging for the game and such things. There was never any intent, nor any mention by me or other people, for this game to ever be a commercial game? That part of the review seems to come out of the blue.


Anyway, thanks again!

In All the Bravest, your only real gameplay is to swipe or touch the screen to attack. Now Punch Bears has similar amount of gameplay in my opinion. I know that I used that term a bit wrong but my point still stands.