Push your flying limits through a canyon of crashing boulders in Danger Darrel, an upcoming mobile release on iOS, and the Google Play Store on October 14th, 2020. New developers HOONAYA have set out to create a well-optimized, engaging, and replayable action thriller, and they have partially delivered on those goals.
Danger Darrel, in brief, sets players up as a scrapyard pilot giving new life to junker planes, flying them as far as possible through a canyon obstacle course. Collect gas canisters to fly farther and collect coins on each flight to unlock plane cosmetics. Each flight’s distance traveled counts towards your overall level gatekeeping unlockable planes.
Components
A well-blended color palette combined with high-quality models produces a graphical aspect to Danger Darrel that jumps off the screen. Amidst a vast library of other action/survival mobile games, this one manages to stand-out just on its artistic merits. It offers three graphical modes, of which I was able to run the highest performance smoothly on my Samsung Galaxy S20+.
Thematically, Danger Darrel mixes its pieces together well. I connected with the scrappy, grunting pilot and his quest to give new purpose to the wayward planes of flight’s past. I loved the flare (not the mechanic) of using coffee cups as the play-limiting currency. In a saturated genre, Danger Darrel manages to feel innovative and fresh.
The music in Danger Darrel is left to the wayside, mainly because it plays best in quick 5-10 minute sessions. I would recommend turning on some of your own western tunes to straddle the canyon skies for longer play sessions.
Game Feel
Danger Darrel excels at making each run feel like progress in a larger mission. It is one of the most important elements in obstacle course games like this, and by adding each run’s distance with each other and tying that to your overall level, gives Danger Darrel meaningful replayability.
Also, unlocking new planes at further levels feels like an earned and valuable upgrade each time. The first plane you get is rickety and drags across the screen with slumping reluctance, but by the third plane your increased piloting skills are rewarded with a lighter and more maneuverable plane.
However, these upgrades ended up making Danger Darrel a worse experience. At least with the poor starting planes there was a struggle to survive, but with the good planes I ran out of challenges. I was capable of surviving every stretch of the repeated course, and with no mechanic in the game to increase the obstacles as distance increases, the challenge of the game turned from flight skills to raw endurance–from: Am I able to clear this ravine and then turn my plane to fit between those walls? To: Am I able to hold my attention span on clearing the same unchallenging obstacles for the 5th time on this neverending run?
And on top of that, the core of Danger Darrel is about precision control through an obstacle course, but the control isn’t quite precise and the obstacles sometimes lie in their appearance. To control flight, you drag your finger around a directional circle, which on its own works fine, but ends up counter-intuitive to naturally wanting to put your finger on the plane and control it from there because when you put your finger on the plane and drag you can’t see the nearest obstacle.
Likewise, the hitboxes for the obstacles and planes were frustrating. Too often I would be surprised by a rock or plane wing that extended past its rendered model with a jagged invisible hitbox.
Conclusion
Danger Darrel is strong with regards to its fantastic art, novel theme, some game mechanics that feed into replayability, and a team at HOONAYA with a mission to strengthen those core facets. Despite Danger Darrel’s positives, its primary shortcomings in lacking challenges and precise hitboxes hamper my otherwise enthusiastic recommendation. With its potential not fully unlocked, I will be curious to see how Danger Darrel releases in about a month’s time.
Check Out the Danger Darrel Gameplay Video:
For more information and to become an iOS or Android Beta tester for Danger Darrel, please visit: https://www.hoonaya.com/index.html
Recent Michigan State University grad and current Game Studies researcher who plays fantasy RPG's to escape, Smash to compete, and Stardew to chill. Also have a +1 to rage/toxicity resistance due to the many hours sunk into WoW, R6, and LoL.
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