I loved playing Lethal Company with my mates. It was a minimalist but thought-out experience with an engaging, well-designed loop that was immediately easy to understand. Its asymmetric monster design really made the game, though, forcing players to actually make use of the proximity voice chat to work together and get out alive.
This is not dissimilar to why I love Left 4 Dead 2 so much, a topic I recently covered here.
Any regular on the Steam storefront will know that plenty of developers have followed in the footsteps of Lethal Company, to varying degrees of innovation and success. Gamble With Your Friends is one of the most recent and, to be honest, I found it to be a near-complete waste of time.
Why?
The Proximity Chat Has No Reason To Exist
Yes, before we get to my main issue with the game — its complete and total reliance on randomness (yes, I’m aware the word ‘gamble’ is in the title and I do know what it means, but I’m still going to complain) — I need to talk about proximity chat.
In Lethal Company, proximity chat is there to be used. It is there to help players work together, and to provide a limitation that must be worked around; you have to stick together if you want to communicate.
But in Gamble With Your Friends, you don’t really need to communicate. Before I go on, I should probably explain what Gamble With Your Friends is actually about.
What is this game and why do I have such a problem with it?
If it wasn’t apparent, Gamble With Your Friends is about… Gambling. With your friends. You and a bunch of buddies go into a wacky casino with some starting funds and try not to lose it all. At first, that sounds like a fun way to chill out with your mates, until you realise that you’re just pressing the same button over and over again as you ‘interact’ with the various machines. More on that later.
The important thing to note here is that communication is completely and utterly optional.
And that, for me, is Gamble With Your Friends’ biggest downfall. What on Earth is the point in proximity chat if you don’t need it?
Now, you may be asking — why is this a big deal? Truthfully, it’s not. But this points to a bigger issue, and that is that Gamble With Your Friends has proximity voice chat not because the developers made a conscious design decision, but because all the other ‘friend slop’ games that came before also had it.
And, really, that’s my issue with the game. There don’t seem to have been many design decisions at all.
Randomness Isn’t Fun In A Vacuum
What people like is risk. People love to take risks. But risking fake, digital currency in a game that’s meant to be a casual hangout with friends is not the same.
In fact, it’s not a risk at all. If anything, it’s just a bit funny to lose a few million while your mates slowly cry and try to get you away from whatever machine you’re on.
I’ll admit, that’s the fun part here. Gamble With Your Friends is, as with other friend slop games, a breeding ground for shenanigans. But it’s not enough.
This is all Gamble With Your Friends really has to offer. Yes, there are some silly gadgets that let you mess with your friends, but it’s relatively meaningless. Why mess with your friends? Well, you can try and stop them from losing all your money. That’s one. Any other reason is… Well, just pure mean spirit. And that’s not my thing.
Randomness in a room full of one-button interactions. That’s pretty much all Gamble With Your Friends is, and it skates by on the novelty of it all.
‘I wonder if this machine will be different. Oh! How do I win here? Guys, come and check this out, a Wheel of Fortune!’
Well, I hate to say it, the machines are all just different ways to lose or gain money while looking at a slightly different visual.
The only difference is with games like Blackjack. But if I wanted to play digital Blackjack, I’d go and play something like Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers.
Why Are You Complaining?
It’s true. Lots of people seem to enjoy Gamble With Your Friends. At the time of writing, it’s got a ‘Very Positive’ overall rating on Steam. I can’t argue with that. It’s got an atmosphere to it that makes it a reasonable place to sit, hang out, and mindlessly press buttons.
It’s just not what I want to see more of.
Lethal Company struck gold. And developers are still trying to mine it. But everyone seems to have forgotten that Lethal Company wasn’t just a goofy multiplayer game with minimalist graphics and proximity voice chat. It was a genuine effort with real design choices. It wasn’t slop.
And what does that say about these games? Games that have been lumped into a genre with the word ‘slop’ in its title. The clue’s in the name.
There are so many games on Steam getting buried underneath everything else. Lots of people with great ideas. There are also a great many prospectors out there.
Ask yourself, then — what is it you want to see more of?
Let’s End With A Recommendation — Mosa Lina
Mosa Lina is a tiny little puzzle game that’s a lot bigger than it seems. That’s because it’s also an immersive-sim. Or, in the developer’s words, ‘a hostile interpretation of the immersive-sim.’
Now, I didn’t pick Mosa Lina at random — it’s not just some experimental indie darling that I picked because it’s ‘underrated.’ It’s hardly done poorly on the Steam store and the reviews are extremely positive. I picked it because it does a lot with a little. It is an elegant design that is, effectively, built around randomness — but it’s still very intentionally designed.
See, Mosa Lina is a puzzle game, but its puzzles don’t have set solutions. And I don’t mean, ‘this puzzle has three possible solutions and it’s up to you to decide’, I mean there is no set solution. Instead, you get given a radical variety of tools to get creative with. And guess what? That’s right, the selection of tools you have is completely random.
This randomness means that every player is likely to experience the game and its many puzzles in very different ways. It makes starting over exciting, because even if you see the same tool again, it could be paired with something entirely new, something that combines with the familiar in new and interesting ways.
And I picked Mosa Lina for another reason too: it also features online multiplayer. Yup, you can play this game with a friend in co-op, and for my money it’s a better way to hang out and make each other laugh than walking around a digital casino having the same interaction and watching numbers go up and down. The only downside is, as far as I’m aware, you can only play the game with a maximum of two players.