Beast game's 'Avalanche 2' is an endless tower climber flash game I picked up in a Humble Monthly bundle. The Steam release (via adobe Air) includes various extra features over the .swf demo.

Since it is bloody cold, I decided it was time to download it and give it a shot.

You play a marshmallow thing that was asleep on the job. While you were meant to be guarding a sceptre of EXTREME POWER you take a nap only to have some flying wizard guy steal it and set off a volcano.

To make matters better and worse, falling bricks appear. These have the ability to squash you, but do save you from a slowly rising lava level.

Basically you just need to jump up higher and higher. Falling blocks can be jumped on but not pushed. However you can break them if you bang your marshmallow heat against them several times. Gravity will kick in and any other blocks it was supporting will fall down until they touch another one.

Along with the solid blocks, there are also wooden platforms and shop roof you can jump down to the floor below from. It is also possible to wrap around the sides of the screen. Rather than invisible walls going past the borders will cause you to show up on the other side. As a classic 2D platformer, don't question the logic on how this and lava several hundred feet high works.

Each zone has their own themed blocks and enemies. While the game is slightly challenging, it is not overly ridiculous on what it ends your way, and you are more likely to die from stupid mistakes than the RNG of the run.

All the ones I encountered moved slow enough to counter and understand their movements in seconds.

Every few hundred feet, the game is crying out for metric, but also puts you in a boss battle. Here the screen freeze frames until the boss is defeated, with the lava resetting just under the platform you fight on.

This is traditional jump-on-their-head to kill style of play. If you've played any platformer fro the 80s or 90s you'll know how this works right away. One issue I did have is that each boss area will also generate a few solid blocks to jump on to aid you. A few times with the Audrey 2 boss I found it would get stuck against the wall (boss do not warp) and a block. Eventually it would jump out enough for me to attack without risking certain life loss, but this did break the flow.

As with just about every other game in this genre, there's a number of unlockables. You are given a bonus one for completing a tutorial of a cosmetic item. They're basically different face expressions, accessories, and hairstyles.

Aside from these you can use various options that allow you to start the game various powerup. And perks that modify how hard/easy the game is.

To be able to buy any of these you need to use the coins you collect in game. The twist here is that you only get to keep the coins you collect that you 'bank' per level by jumping on a deposit chest in a bank/shop. However as you can also use collected coins in game at shops there is a 'withdrawal' chest too, and withdrawing and dying means you don't get to keep them.

You can get more coins by completing 'missions' At first I had some confusion as I thought it would be individual level types, but there is just Endless Mode. Instead missions give you objectives to pull off in the endless mode run to gain extra coins as rewards. You unlock them in game or find them as item pickups. Before a run, you can select missions and apply them. You get one chance then they are lost until you find another.

To be fair the tutorial does tell you several times to bank. So remember you need to bank them. The coins. Bank the coins you collect. Remember to bank the coins.

For a basic 2D game game designed for short runs, it is quite fun. The difficulty curve is challenging but low enough to not make you rage quit as the expectation is you will not succeed every time.

If you're after something of this genre with a little more polish than you would get off places like Kongregate, it is worth a look.

Game Acquisition: Humble Monthly (April 2016)
Platform Used: Steam
Tweet Thread: 1 - 29 May 2016
PC Used: Scorptec Venom 2009 MK2

OS: Windows XP
Processor: Intel® Core™ i3-2310M processor (dual-core, 2.10GHz, 3MB Cache)
Memory: 2 GB RAM
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 3000 in processor
Storage: 35 MB available space
Sound Card: Realtek High Definition Audio
Additional Notes: Requires Adobe AIR v4.0 or greater