At a glance, you might assume that today’s
game is a children’s game, or at least something suitable for a child interested in gaming. However, I wouldn’t recommend letting your
child anywhere near it unless you want them to be turned off games forever. My name is Graeldon, and I'm reviewing Steam
games in Alphabetical order to find the hidden gems among the piles of garbage, and today’s
game is: 1 Hop Let’s begin. I went into 1 Hop expecting a short but sweet
animal based collection focused gam
e - like a super cutesy 3D Mario game without any platforming
or enemies - y'know, the fun stuff. I figured it might be a bit simple, but I
also assumed it was probably intended to be a children's game, so a lack of complexity
is to be expected. Yeah, if I liked my child, I wouldn't let
them anywhere near this mess of a game. Released on the 22nd of April 2021, developed
by Fraser T and published by BM code, this is the only game to their names. 1 Hop is a 3rd person adventure game where
you pla
y as a rabbit on a journey to climb a mountain and become the king rabbit. The world is divided into four zones, and
you need to collect a certain number of items in each in order to unlock the next and progress. It’s a simple idea, but we’ll be discussing
shortly how it somehow manages to all go so very wrong. Now, in all fairness, if this is their first
attempt at a game, then they deserve some measure of praise, because they actually released
something, which is more than many aspiring devs e
ver actually achieve. It’s reviewing games like this that always
serve as a reminder to myself that I’m just someone with an opinion, and that creating
something is much more difficult than simply critiquing it. That said, just because you’ve made something,
that doesn’t mean it deserves praise. If a new cafe opens up and serves you the
worst coffee in the world, you’re not going to sit there and pretend to enjoy it. After the first sip of the rancid, burned
beverage passes your lips, you’re goi
ng to either not finish it, or ask for a refund. Now, as a self-titled critic, I’ll take
one for the team and drink the whole thing, just in case it’s an acquired taste, or
had a layer of something awful on top - and then advise people to stay the hell away. Now that said, today’s particular beverage
isn’t so offensive as to warrant sending in city health inspectors, but it’ll make
you wonder if these particular baristas even know what the hell coffee is. But enough about coffee, let’s look at t
he
actual game. For starters, feast your eyes on this title
screen! This is the point in the video where I would
talk about the options menu, if it had one. Moving right along and into the actual game,
we’re instantly in control of our player character, this frankly adorable, low poly
white rabbit. They don’t have a name, so this is now Larry
the Bunny. Larry is controlled with standard WASD movement,
and E to jump - not that it’s actually needed to beat the game, because there isn’t any
platfor
ming, and Larry is able to walk up any slightly sloped surface. There’s also no separate camera control,
but pressing F will toggle between a few different perspectives. Movement feels… awful. The movement animation is too slow for the
speed you move at, making things feel strangely floaty, and creating a disconnect with the
world, and the jump always covers a set distance, feeling too rigid. Have you ever been playing a game and suddenly
wondered: “Am I controlling the character moving in the w
orld space, or am I actually
controlling the world while a running animation plays?”. Yeah that feeling of having the immersion
lifted, of peeking behind the curtain, ruins a lot of the enjoyment of a gaming experience. So to notice that from the very first moment
of the game doesn’t exactly set it up for success. Alright, so the movement is awful, but what
else? Well, the physics are broken too. There are a couple of animals dotted around,
bringing some life to the otherwise incredibly flat, bl
and and uninspired environments, and
bumping into them will sometimes cause things like this. Or this. Or even this. These moments were the most fun I had with
the game. Granted, that’s entirely unintentional,
but they do often say the best fun is the fun you make for yourself. What we are actually meant to be doing is
guiding Larry towards the mountain we can see off in the distance. To do this, we’ll need to work through the
three zones, and each zone is unlocked by collecting a set number of
items. In the first zone, Larry needs to find 5 carrots. This area is relatively small, but even then
it could prove a little tricky as some of the carrots don’t even show any of the orange
section, making it look like a simple tuft of grass. In fact, the game has several problems with
the vertical Z coordinates of several objects, resulting in floating blades of grass, rocks,
mushrooms and so on - a sure sign that these weren’t hand placed, or at least not placed
with any semblance of care. Car
rots collected, Larry can now access the
farm. Here, our collection quota has doubled to
10 sacks of food. What kind of food? Don’t know, doesn’t matter. A couple of fun things I noticed here: Firstly,
the mud in the animal pens is just a flat, brown texture floating slightly above the
ground. In fairness, it sells the illusion fairly
well, at least until you view it from an angle, and see a layer just hovering. Secondly, there is a hidden key that unlocks
the barn. And by unlock, I mean that ob
taining the key
allows Larry to ascend to a higher plane of existence and learn how to phase through walls. But only barn doors. It’s a very specific power. And lastly, the text hint for the key, and
in fact all text hints, never despawn and are visible from literally the other side
of the map. Right, with all 10 food bags collected, it’s
onto the second last area, where Larry will need to find, you guessed it, double the number
of items again, but this time both carrots and food bags. Not only
is this area massive, literally 3
or 4 times the size of the previous ones, it’s also guarded by a dog that will teleport
you back to the start of the area if it catches Larry. Strangely, the dog simply vanished after it
caught Larry the first time. I’m not sure if this is intentional, or
if the game took pity upon me for actually playing it. Anyway, while we’re zig-zagging back and
forth through this area, let’s alleviate our boredom by enjoying the background music. Well, we could if there was
any music, but
1 Hop is devoid of both music and sound effects. Well if we can’t expect the game to make
itself more interesting, let’s take a look at the Steam Reviews. Or rather, Steam Review, as there is only
one. This is a great game! I liked the bit when the bunny movies around
the map. I recommend if you like games where you move
and jump around like a bunny. It seems they are a fan of bunnies, so that’s
nice, good for them. I took a closer look at their Steam account
though and noticed t
hat 1 Hop is one of three games they own. Whoever they are, I hope they are okay. Thankfully this third area is made somewhat
easier due to the rabbit holes scattered around that act as teleports. For example, the first one you see after leaving
the farm actually takes you directly to the base of the mountain, and back again. Convenient if you happen to miss any of the
20 items on your first pass through. With all 20 items finally collected, we’re
finally able to guide Larry to the top of the mo
untain, traversing the winding path
of floating rocks to an alcove at the top where a golden crown awaits our new bunny
champion. Touching the crown ends the game, with the
end screen boldly asking if I want to play “agian”. No, no I do not. Unfortunately, reality had different ideas
for me, as I did indeed end up playing through the game again. Why? Well, we haven’t even touched on the 2 player
mode yet. Yes, 1 Hop has a two player mode, and it’s
more broken than single player. The controls for
player 1 stay the same, and
player two controls Barry using the arrow keys and the spacebar to jump. Once I reached the farm area, the objective
text simply failed to update whenever Larry collected a food bag, so I thought it was
totally broken, but checking the counter by the fence proved it was still working behind
the scenes. In the third area, it seems that the rabbit
holes simply don’t function in two player mode. I also discovered that you can bypass the
20 collectables by going to the l
eft of the start of the mountain path and simply scaling
the side of the mountain itself, skyrim horse style. Reaching the crown plays the same ending sequence
as before; there’s no special ending where both players become the rabbit king. Look, kudos to the devs for including a 2
player mode, but it’s incredibly simplistic. If your 2 player mode doesn’t allow for
any co-operation or competitiveness, heck even any interaction, what is the point? While I was allowing my thoughts on the game
to se
ttle, I thought I’d take another look at the store page, and that’s when part
of it caught my eye: After the farm you will need to avoid the dog and get to the car. drive the car to the base of the mountain
and start the climb to become King Rabbit. With 2 Difficulties one with the car and a
harder one with a lot to find. I’m sorry, what? Drive the car? Two difficulties? Did I miss something? No, No I didn’t. Neither of these two things are actually in
the game. Being able to drive the car would
explain
why the stretch between the farm and the mountain is so big. But there’s no car in the game, just a pickup
truck. So I went back in and tested it, and no, it’s
definitely not drivable. So I took yet another look at the store page,
and looked at the screenshots again, and that’s when I saw it. Clear as day, there’s a car. So I took a look at the trailer, and noticed
that it’s almost 3 minutes long. And lo and behold, guess what’s shown in
the video: A car, just sitting out in the open af
ter the farm area. The video shows the car driving, using rocks
as ramps to launch into the air, and even knocking trees out of the way. What a shame that this never made it into
the actual game. But what if I told you that it actually did? Because although I can’t find any evidence
of it, it was definitely there. How can I be so sure? Because 1 Hop has one, and only one patch
note. On the 22nd of August, the devs made the following
4 changes to the game: Fixed Loading time
Higher FPS Fixed Bugs
Removed Car Thanks devs, for removing the singular part
of your game that actually looked fun. And on that note, it’s time to give 1 Hop
its final rating: Fake Mud, out of ten. From the right angle, it looks fine, but look
too closely and the flaws are all too apparent. Thanks for watching. Larry was sponsored by Negimalevolent, and
Barry was sponsored by Theo The Cat Guy. Thousands of Larry’s are abandoned every
day and are in need of your care, so if you’d like to adopt a Larry, check out the
membership
options below. I’d also like to say a special thank you
to our two Knights of the Holy Grael, Freaky Feline and LoveHeartGonzy. Lastly, thank you for being a part of this
weird gaming journey. And, if you made it this far, here’s a sneak
peek of the next game. Until next time, take care!
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