Capybara Madness

Genre: 3D Platformer / Puzzle-Platformer

Players: 1

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Review:

(Note: This game is included in Capybara, Ducks, Rats and Bananas Bundle, along with Ducky Quacky, Ratyboy Adventures, and Revenge of Banana.)

Capybara Madness, released in 2023 on Nintendo Switch, is a 3D Platformer and physics-based Puzzle-Platformer where players control an anthropomorphic capybara (for no apparent reason) trying to get through various obstacle courses.

This is one of those games that tries to build gameplay atop “ragdoll physics” in much the same way as Human: Fall Flat, with your character moving clumsily and able to independently control each arm, and trying to use your limited abilities to grab objects to complete goals needed to push buttons or press down on floor panels to open doors, among other things.

Where Human: Fall Flat (sorta’) succeeds and Capybara Madness fails is in the level design, and the degree of clumsy and incompetent your character is.

Jumping in Capybara Madness, in particular, is both extremely limited and inconsistent, with even simple jumps proving to be maddeningly difficult, usually leading to you falling down a chasm, landing where you started, and having to wait a few seconds for your character to recover for the umpteenth time. However, controlling your hands is similarly clumsy, to the point where even pressing a button becomes a challenge in itself.

And while I don’t share the enthusiasm that many players have for Human: Fall Flat, I do at least give it credit for presenting interesting problems with level design that pushes players to come up with creative solutions. Not so here, where there’s almost always one obvious solution to the obvious puzzle, and the difficulty is in actually doing it using the game’s terrible controls.

The presentation isn’t helping matters either. This game’s 3D visuals are basic and unimpressive, much in line with Human: Fall Flat. However, they’re also bland and repetitive. What’s more, they’re backed by an extremely repetitive soundtrack that you’ll want to mute soon after playing.

So, in the end, yes, Capybara Madness is indeed much like a poor man’s Human: Fall Flat, but you get what you pay for, and as a result this game’s terrible controls, unimaginative level design, and severely lacking presentation all make this Puzzle-Platformer something you should avoid.

tl;dr – Capybara Madness is a 3D Platformer and physics-based Puzzle-Platformer where players run through obstacle courses as an anthropomorphic capybara. This game is clearly imitating the style of gameplay we see in Human: Fall Flat, but with worse controls, terrible platforming, unimaginative level design, and terrible repetitive music. Even though it’s cheaper than the game it’s copying, it’s not worth it.

Grade: D

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