Team17 has had a fantastic track record recently. Overcooked 2 was an absolute smash hit (I’m the world expert so you can trust me). Genesis Alpha One was a unique and engrossing experience. Yooka Laylee recently reminded us of just how good 2D platformers can be. They’ve decided to team up with SMG Studio, developers of the delightful puzzle title Death Squared. Death Squared and Overcooked have a ton in common, both games are bursting with charm and are a total blast to play. They are both full of clever ideas and contain plenty of challenges to keep players hooked. Those players are usually my brother and I and if you’ve ever read anything on here you’ll know it’s anything but a co-operative experience.
We did finish Overcooked 2. We hit 100% completion and set records on every level. We nearly killed each other in the process. We called each other things that definitely can never be repeated and very dangerous accusations were made. We had the absolute best time. Death Squared was a similar situation. We literally did kill each other in-game. It descended very quickly into chaos as every time one person made a mistake the other responded in kind with an almost brutal murder. Both games were just wildly enjoyable.
Three paragraphs in I’m finally getting to the point. Moving Out is a fantastically fun game that channels everything that was special about Team17’s Overcooked and SMG’s Death Squared into something familiar but also completely different. As a team, you’ll work to clear objects from an environment, be it furniture from an office or farmyard animals. Launching a chicken into the back of a moving truck is wonderfully bizarre in the best kind of way, working together to move a couch into a lift is a different kind of bizarre but no less appealing.
The environments are varied and bursting with colour, the characters are charming and cute and the music is light and fun. The whole package here all comes together with a very consistent tone that knows exactly what it needs to be: fun. Especially in a team of four. Attempting to coordinate in order to properly complete objectives rapidly descends into riotous fare and is a total joy. You may end up strangling your friends but it’ll all be worth it when that gold medal pops up after you’ve completed each level. These objectives aren’t easy at all, the challenge is real. Achieving the fastest times requires genuine teamwork and planning and won’t come easily at all.
I absolutely loved my time with Moving Out. I was only able to play a few rounds but there was more than enough evidence to say that this will be an absolute hit with the couch (and online) co-op crowd. Keep an eye out for when it launches on all platforms (especially Nintendo Switch) in 2020!
