Slap Out Of It! [Preview]: Throwing hands

We check out the first person people problem solver

I knew I was in for an interesting experience when I was asked to help a person get unstuck from a finger trap, and I just happened to have some in my pocket. The entire premise of Turbo Button’s Slap Out Of It! is to help solve these kinds of problems, these mini puzzles, using usually as weird a means as possible. And it’s funny every time! This kind of humor works on yours truly, this slapstick, goofy, self-referential fourth wall breaking style of comedy.

The game, set in first person and full of colorful characters and situations (literally) requires that we essentially look at and remember everything, hoping to form some strange connection in our heads that may pop up later. Do we need money? Grab a dollar and make photo copies. Do we need to steal a dinosaur bone from a laser trap? Grab the party fog from the dance floor, but only after we’ve grabbed a pair of party glasses from another room.

Physics work in this game, but only from that silly Saturday Morning Cartoon perspective. We have incredibly long arms that would make Monkey D. Luffy proud, and can use them to slap faces, push buttons, steal things or just cause trouble. We can hit a button that makes a room flip upside down, while we’re still standing straight up, and reveal more secrets. We can check out the centerfold of a strangely placed magazine and watch it unfold all the way and back onto itself for no reason other than “sure, why not do this.” I can’t help but smile or giggle at everything that the game asks of us, and especially more for what we discover on our own.

The opening section of our demo at Summer Game Fest has us starting a new job at a company that helps solve problems. We have a small office and a reception desk, and as people come zipping over in a chair. Each hand is controlled by a trigger, so when we do solve things we have to remember which hand we grabbed it with or which hand may be BETTER to use. One person has their hair on fire so I have to grab a fire extinguisher and put it out, another wants to buy a puzzle from us but they didn’t give us enough money (hence the copier situation). And yet another wants to eat something that has a good, soft, gooey texture to it, so we can use the fire extinguisher again to fill up their face. It’s all bizarre and yet it somehow coagulates into cohesive ideas.

We’re eventually allowed to move into the rest of the building using an elevator, which includes access to a bathroom, a dance club, and museum. Each of these have their own puzzles to solve, and they’re all linked together in ways that lead to wonderful “a-ha!” moments. In one portion we have to get something flammable into the museum but the guard wont let us in. So, we take it to the floor above, rotate the elevator (we can apparently do this here) and it drops down through the vent into the museum behind the guard’s view. Brilliant. Stupidly brilliant.

The developers behind the game, Turbo Button, drew a lot of inspiration from classic point and click adventures like Sam & Max and Monkey Island, and are fans of that character driven experience. They also drew from comedy movies like Airplane, Naked Gun and Monty Python, and even shows like Taskmaster. The developer on staff excitedly reiterated that they really want to make a stupid game that encourages us to think.

I can’t agree more. It’s stupid, and silly, but in the very best way, and I can’t wait to play the full game when it finally releases. Though they have taken what they’ve learned from their goofy VR endeavors (Floor Plan and Floor Plan 2) and put them into a wholly new experience, Slap Out Of It! game will NOT be coming to any VR platforms as it’s only announced for PC thus far.