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Unfair Jousting Fair Indie Game Review

Unfair Jousting Fair Indie Game Review

We at Geeky Hobbies would like to thank Rodaja for the review copy of Unfair Jousting Fair used for this review. Other than receiving a free copy of the game to review, we at Geeky Hobbies received no other compensation for this review. Receiving the review copy for free had no impact on the content of this review or the final score.

Every so often you are browsing Steam and a game will just pop out as so strange/unique that you have to check it out. Unfair Jousting Fair was one of those games for me. I watched the trailer and I knew I had to try out the game because the trailer was so strange/ridiculous that I thought the game would be a blast to play. While the game will make you laugh at its’ wackiness, Unfair Jousting Fair does have some issues with longevity.

Wacky Jousting

In Unfair Jousting Fair you and a partner compete in a game of jousting. For those of you who don’t know what jousting is/was, two combatants would ride on horses towards one another brandishing a long pole that they would use to try and knock the other person off their horse. Unfair Jousting Fair takes that concept and makes it as wacky/crazy as possible. Instead of riding horses you ride unicycles (and occasionally slugs) and use some of the most ridiculous “weapons” imaginable including lamps, kayak oars, baseball bats, and even rakes.

Just to warn you, Unfair Jousting Fair is exclusively a multiplayer experience. There is no single player campaign and the only way you could play the game by yourself would be if you control both characters at the same time. Since there is no online multiplayer, you need to have at least one other player that you can play the local co-op with.

The gameplay is pretty simple overall. Essentially you control the forward/backward movement of your character as well as the positioning of your “weapon”. A player scores points when either the other player falls down or one player hits the other player (not their weapon) with their weapon. Since you are riding unicycles movement forward and backward is not as easy as just pressing right or left. You need to use a  back and forth rocking motion in order to get momentum in either direction. At first you will likely suck at the movement and will fall immediately which will give a point to your opponent. As you continue playing the game you will get better but there are still plenty of rounds that end with a player immediately falling down.

I think the game made the controls “hard” on purpose. I am guessing they wanted to simulate the difficulty of riding a unicycle while fighting another player. I also think they did it since it makes players movements funny and you will laugh when you or another player falls flat on their face before they even begin moving. While practice helps, you will never be great at controlling the unicycle and I know this will frustrate some people.

While the weapons are pretty funny, some of the weapons seem to be much better than others. The longer weapons in particular seem to be better than the short weapons. Since they have longer range they can hit your opponent before they can even touch you. This can give one player an advantage over the other player since you are randomly given a weapon. Shorter weapons seem to recover quicker after both players hit each others weapons which gives that player an advantage for a second strike. If this fact is really going to annoy you though you probably won’t enjoy the game since it is the type of game where it doesn’t really matter who actually wins. The game is called “Unfair” Jousting Fair after all.

While I had some fun with Unfair Jousting Fair I will acknowledge that the game will not be for everyone. The game thrives on it wackiness so people who can’t appreciate that will probably not like the game. Most of the fun with the game will come from the weird situations that end up occurring. Who doesn’t want to see a jousting match between a person with a rake facing off against a person wielding a floor lamp. I genuinely laughed several times due to the wackiness that transpired in the game. The gameplay is pretty simplistic though so if you can’t get into the wackiness of the game you will probably tire of it pretty quickly.

The biggest problem I had with the game is that it is not the type of game that you want to play for long stretches of time. I would recommend only 15-20 minutes at a time since it started to get a little stale after that point. I kind of wish the game had a little more variety which would have kept the game fresh for a longer period of time. It is the type of game that you would come back to every so often. I could see the novelty wearing off quickly for some people though and they might not get a lot of time out of the game.

Quick Thoughts

  • While it is fun to fiddle with the settings, I highly recommend not turning off the unicycles. Before each match you can activate/deactivate different objects in order to customize each match. To see what would happen we decided to turn off the unicycles. If you turn off the unicycles you end up riding slugs which are so slow that it is chore to even move them far enough that you can actually hit the other player. It was kind of funny seeing our characters try their hardest to get their slug to move at all.
  • I really didn’t understand the “difficulty” levels in the game. I actually found it easier to control in “hard” mode than easy mode. The unicycles seem to move faster which is beneficial in my opinion since it is much easier to move them without falling over.
  • While I found the “theme” of the music to set a good atmosphere for the game, I quickly tired of the music. This is due to the music being so repetitive. I don’t know if the music is actually on a loop but the music seems like it is on a constant 15-30 second loop. If you play the game for more than 15 minutes at a time I would probably recommend turning muting your computer’s sound.
  • The artwork style is pretty creative and adds to the wackiness of the game.
  • I wish there were more things to unlock since most of the items are just different weapons that you can use. I wish there were more additions like the chicken which is a great addition. Its quite funny when you knock out your opponent by hitting them in the head with a chicken.

Should You Purchase Unfair Jousting Fair?

Since Unfair Jousting Fair is exclusively a local multiplayer game, if you don’t have anyone else to play the local co-op with there is no reason to pick up the game.

If you have another player to play the local multiplayer with you could have some fun with the game. If you like wacky multiplayer games you will probably get some fun out of the game. I had fun with the game which mostly came from the complete randomness/wackiness that transpires in the game. Unfair Jousting Fair is not the type of game that I would play for long stretches of time though. It is the type of game that I would play for 15-20 minutes and then maybe come back to at a later date. Some people could get sick of the game after only a couple minutes though. If you don’t get sick of games quickly I think you could have some fun with Unfair Jousting Fair.

Unfair Jousting Fair was released on Steam on September 3rd, 2015 and retails for $4.99.