Learning How to Walk Again in Human: Fall Flat

The development studio of No Brakes Games is comprised of just one guy, Tomas Sakalauskas. His physics-based puzzle platformer, Human: Fall Flat, tells the story of a featureless person trapped in a dream.

We recently got the chance to play co-op mode with Sakalauskas himself, and discover the oddities and challenges of Human: Fall Flat. In the game, you play a white, semi-amorphous humanoid named Bob, stumbling around and grasping at things. As this is a purely physics-based game, every movement you make comes with comical swaying and tumbling.

Human: Fall Flat doesn’t control like a standard game. The left and right trigger cause the corresponding arm on Bob to reach out; whatever your hand hits, it sticks to. You can grab crates, pull yourself up on ledges, and pull levers. Moving and jumping operate as you’d expect, and those are the only other mechanics in the game.

Most of our demo time involved either moving objects around the world, or traversing terrain. The game lets you explore and work it out for yourself, since the absence of enemies keeps the pressure off. We learned how to drag crates and train cars; we used wrecking balls, fire hydrants, and other objects to crash through walls and windows; we struggled to climb up ledges until we learned the trick, resulting in a rather satisfying ascent. Playing Human: Fall Flat is almost like playing a video game for the first time, and that feeling is really special.

What really struck us was how the seemingly simple puzzles had many solutions – some even requiring a second player to achieve. Each area adds more to the mix, and gives you the freedom to experiment and think outside of the box.

In addition to the main story mode, there’s a sandbox area that lets you play around with every component of the game. We expect to see some rather crazy scenarios coming out of the community.

Human: Fall Flat releases on Xbox One later this year via ID@Xbox.