When I first stumbled upon Webbed, it looked like a curious game. Yet, every time I watched any gameplay, I was getting the feeling that despite the really cool mechanics and ideas, the game isn’t actually fun to play. I dismissed the fears, however, and decided to play the game myself. It really isn’t fun to play.
Webbed is a platforming adventure where you play as a spider trying to save your boyfriend, who has been abducted by a bird. As such, you can spin web, use the web as a grapple to swing around and… uh, shoot eye lasers. Given that there’s no conventional combat in this game, those are here to serve as a tool for severing the web, destroying some blocks and moving items around. Using these tools you will explore a world that consists of separate areas, some of which require completion of specific tasks and some contain collectibles, and get help to fight the bird.
The saddest thing about Webbed is that each mechanic it has is fantastic on its own. Swinging around feels really good, among the best I’ve seen in games. Spinning web is fun and simple, allowing for many completely different approaches to solving problems. And the style of the game is really cute, even if the soundtrack is quite bland and uninteresting. Every piece of the game works really well. And I can see how they could be combined for a good result. But it’s not what Webbed does.
I don’t know how or why, but despite having such amazing component, playing Webbed is amusing at best, but tedious and frustrating at worst, which happens most of the time. Out of 4 major “zones” of the game, only one focuses on the fun of swinging and platforming, for example. And it doesn’t do it all that well, if I’m honest, as most of the time you fail because you don’t see a lot of the screen, despite moving around it really fast. Three other “zones”, though, are just unfun to get through. One of them focuses on puzzles where you get the solution almost immediately, but then have to slowly and highly inefficiently solve the puzzle, often times with random simulation-esque elements of the game getting in the way. One of them is just uneventful. And one is a horrendous escort mission with an incredibly stupid AI, though at least it’s rather short. As a result, the game feels as if one were to prepare a fantastic new approach to a Breakout-like game, except your controller is a rusty valve and a bell you have to ring at a very specific tone.
It’s a shame, how such great components were mishandled resulting in a game that isn’t fun. I can understand if you’d want to check it for the style and the mechanics, as swinging around really is good in Webbed. But don’t expect to enjoy trying to actually complete the game.