"Stickbold! A dodgeball adventure" started life as an entry for the Nordic Game Jam in 2013, after recognition and awards the team formed a small 5 member company and produced the full game. I picked it up as part of the April Humble Monthly pack and finally got around to it last week.

I'll state outright that I find sportsball games to be boring and stupid. This goes for non ball based sportsball games. Why do you want to run around chasing a ball! WHY!

This game turned out to be a lot of unexpected fun. Far more than I was expecting out of a sports game, and it is all down to the way it is presented.

I suppose my anti aportsball comment is not that fair. Back in High-School we played Two-Square. Basically you had two adjacent 1.5m squares and hand to hit a tennis ball in your square, have it bounce once, then land in the opposite players square, have it bounce there once, then the opposite player could return the ball the same way. Failure to meet this meant you had to swap out with another player. What are you doing Jerome!

Until a 'cool kid' from another school turned up and changed the rules so you only had to have it bounce once in your square before the other player count return. IT DIDN"T HAVE TO LAND IN THE OPPOSITE SQUARE! !!MADNESS!! Stupid little egotistic fuck. I hope he's suffering today.

ahm...

Anyway.... This game. is fun. A bright and colourful 70s themed dodgeball variant game. I enjoyed hurting people with a bright pink little ball and seeing them get mad on the victory screen. I enjoyed the random stupidity of the cut scenes and mini games, if this was a pure sporting game, I would of given up in minutes. What are you doing Jerome!

In the campaign/story mode, buddies Björn and Jerome are training and getting ready for the stickbold finals. Coach has medals for 1st place for several consecutive years ,but a silver for the previous one and is determined that these two guys don't slack off and give him a second silver. Or worse.

When the game starts, the competing team shows up and Björn is smitten with the woman on the other team.

Of course, these two are immediately kidnapped and the heroes pickup the ball and go off on a quest to save them so they can then compete and pummel the shit out of them with spheres. By following a path of tar.

And then the game slowly gets weirder.

Hippies getting high off of honey in their Volkswagen Type 2. A lifeguard who will not let them use a flotation device. A giant whale. The Devil himself. Mutants. What are you doing Jerome!

All presenting a challenge to rescue the other team. All resolved, by dodgeball. On each mission there are a few optional objectives to pull off, I found it hard to do all three in one round but the game is short enough that a replay is fun enough to return to go back and complete them.

By the screenshots I thought it would be rather offputting and tacky. I smiled throughout at what the game threw at me. I understand about 3 words of Norwegian, so I'm not sure if the game used this and fed me English subtitles or if it was just a form of Simlish. Eitherway, the vocal tones mixed with the simplistic body shapes and smooth animation felt just right.

Aside from the campaign, there is a local co-op hotseat mode. Set up to 4 players with bots and compete in customisable levels. You can change victory conditions and hazards to match what you are after. I only played a little vs bots but it was entertaining.

Basic game controls are WASD and left click to throw the ball, holding the button down powers up to throw it harder and further. Right click will pass to another team mate (or just throw it in the direction you are facing). Space will dodge, or dive-catch if done in the direction of a ball thrown to you. Really really annoyingly, dodge/catch can't be set to the RMB. Which is rather crazy considering how well the rest of the game is made and took me a fair while to get use to using space as dodge and not RMB. But you can also connect a controller and use that.

Hit another player once to daze them for a second and you have a star timer over their heads. Hit them again to knock them out. Knock out all opposing team players and you win a point. Win three points and win the level.

Minigames are the same thing, but instead of enemies you are vs in a single round against an objective. Such as destroying the hippy van. Or knocking out a giant whale. They do a great job of breaking the game up and giving you small tips on how to combat future levels as the AI gets harder. What are you doing Jerome!

Stickbold is something I would of completely ignored had it not shown up in a bundle. Sports game are totally not on my radar and I installed this one just to blast through it.

Which is a shame, I ended up playing it for around 4 hours and had a great time with it on my own. Bright, colourful, and utterly mad, it is a game worth checking out. Especially if you have the space for friends to play with.

Game Acquisition: Steam Coupon.
Platform Used: Steam
Tweet Threads: 1 2 - 13 June 2016
PC Used: Scorptec Venom 2009 MK2

OS: Windows /7/8/8.1/10 both x86 and x64
Processor: Intel Pentium Dual Core E2220 (2.4 GHz) or equivalent / AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+(2*2.6 GHz) or equivalent
Memory: 2048 MB RAM
Graphics: GeForce GT 610 (1024 MB) or equivalent / Radeon HD 6450 (512 MB) or equivalent
DirectX: Version 11
Storage: 750 MB available space