Game: Tools Up!
Genre: Arcade, Multiplayer, Party, Simulation
System: Nintendo Switch
Developer/Publisher: The Knights of Unity|ALL IN! GAMES
Age Rating: US E| EU 3+
Price: US $19.99 | UK £17.99 | EU €19,99
Release Date: December 3rd 2019Review code used, with many thanks to ALL IN! GAMES!Tell Me What’s The Word? A Tools Up! “Brandine! Grab that thar paint fer me, will yeh!”“I’m busy Billy-Bob, I got a’lotta shellac’n to finish!”“Gosh dang it Brandine! Now I done spilled all this here paint all over the floor!”“That sounds like a you problem Billy-Bob!”Okay okay, so in case you might be wondering what the heck is going on with this review, I will let you in on the point right now: I felt, for some reason, like I had to put on a really hokey fake southern accent in order to really get into the character and feel of this game.Now, most people are (likely) not as strange as me, and perhaps will not experience the same feeling… But I wanted to throw it out there.As soon as I loaded up the game and entered into the character selection screen, I knew it was going to be a fun time when every character was dressed in their own version of jean overalls and a hardhat.On top of that, every character was big and burly. Which I suppose fits with the stereotype that people who work in home renovation are going to be big and burly… I can only assume from lifting large lengths of wood around all day.But – and now I haven’t unlocked every character yet – but I am sure that ectomorphs can renovate just as well as mesomorphs and endomorphs. That aside, I liked that both genders were available; though of course, living in such times as we do where we know there are no longer just two binary genders, I find it difficult to comment and truly LIKE it… if you know what I mean. But just note that both masculine and feminine are on the docket of characters that can be selected and played.Now you may think I’m making a big deal out of such a tiny little thing, but – as someone who’s big on equality and equal representation in all forms of media – I think it’s important that ART (and video games are art) leads by example: in making sure that the mentalities required for positive change are showcased. So, I always feel like I have to mention it as positive steps forward.And let’s not be species-ist either: animal friends are also represented, if you have the gumption and skill to unlock them anyway. *WINK*UP! UP!So for me, when I booted up the game and felt an immediate attachment to the idea based on my very rural upbringing, I can easily say I was having a positive experience right out of the gate.Now, Tools Up! is – as they call it now-a-days – a “couch co-op” game. It’s fun enough in single player mode, but the multiplayer mode is what it’s truly about in my opinion.And I gotta say, it’s pretty dang fun.NOW, this all depends on WHO you are playing with. Before I delve into this let’s discuss controls briefly, shall we?Grab Your TrowelsControls work with a hold or tap system. Now, for the sake of ease, let’s go through them button by button because I was slightly confused when I was first playing.X: HOLD. You have to hold down this button to collect or distribute the “thing” you have in stock. So, for example, say you have a roll of orange carpet that needs to be put on the floor. You must stand near the carpet so that a white “you are targeting this” ring goes around it, then you must press and HOLD X until a little meter fills up saying you are full of carpet. Then you can move to whatever space needs carpet, and when that space is similarly highlighted in white, you can press and hold X to put down the carpet on that square.A: TAP. You press the A button to pick things up or put things down. So if you want to pick up the aforementioned carpet to move it out of the way, stand near it, when it’s highlighted you tap A and you’ll pick it up and carry it around.B: TAP. This is the throw button. So, if you have that carpet in your arms and you want to quickly get rid of it, you can tap B to toss it in whatever direction you’re facing. This button can also be nice and trolly, which I’ll get into later.Joystick: just use it to move your character around.Now, those are the default controls; but you can also go into the options menu and change it so that A simply becomes the functions of X and A (holding A to gather, and simply tapping A to pick up/put down). Now personally, I found these second controls easier to wrap my mind around.And, the second controls are also easier to explain to people who are just showing up at your party and are trying to just jump into the middle of the game when you’re already six stages deep.So, interesting choice that those aren’t the default controls, but hey, I’m no game designer (yet); so I’m sure there’s an excellent quality assurance and play testing reason for why the game developers set it up the way they did.Here A Troll, There A Troll, Everywhere A Troll Troll!Alright, so here’s the part where I do a little comparison. This game is quite reminiscent of Overcooked. For those who don’t have a clue what I am talking about, Overcooked is a little couch co-op game where you and your friends play as chefs who have to team up to take orders, cook meals, and wash dishes in order to keep customers happy.And Tools Up! is a little couch co-op where you team up to renovate a house to keep your customers happy.The two games have a similar artistic feel to me, visually anyway; the core idea/goal of both games is similar as well. That idea being that you’re going to go farther if you can all manage to work together, but the game has put in intentional things to make it easy to NOT work together and essentially troll each other.This isn’t a bad thing at all. On the contrary, the game would be less fun if everyone was forced to be nice and do everything perfectly.Part of the fun is the frantic pace of the game – especially as you near the end of your time limit – and then having people accidentally (or on purpose) spill all the paint so that everyone slips in it, or pick you up and toss you, or literally just pick you up and hold on to you until you’re like “WHAT THE HECK ALEX, GAWD-DANG IT PUT ME DOWN!”Oh man, I don’t know if there was a glitch or what, but something hilarious happened when I was playing this with my friends:Someone picked my friend’s character up, and then threw him, but he ended up landing on the edge of the walls of the house, and then his character was just stuck up there. He couldn’t move anymore, and we were all laughing so hard. THEN, the even more ultimate thing that made this scenario more hilarious was that we managed to finish the renovations on the house without him anyway, but part of beating the level requires ALL the “tools” to be out of the house by the time limit; and your characters themselves count as a tool. And his character still counted as being inside the house.HA-LARIOUS! Couldn’t stop laughing. It was a grand gaming day.And that is, honestly, what these games are all about for me.“Couch co-op”, or “party”, games aren’t about getting the perfect score, or winning. It’s about having fun with your friends, making memories, and laughing.So, honestly, the fact that Tools Up! gave that to me is enough for me to give it a good score. And it is also just pretty dang fun.REE!-no-vatePlaying with trolls aside, I guess I’ve only briefly mentioned the point of the game (besides the inner warm fuzzy feelings you get when playing games with people you like).The point is to move your characters around a house, and follow the specific blueprints in each level, in order to put the correct paint/carpet/flooring on the walls and floors.As the game progresses, this will get more and more difficult to do. When you first start out, you’re in a house that is basically a cement box; blank walls and floors mean you just grab the paint and carpet already available and put it where it needs to go.As you get deeper and deeper into the game you start having to do things like remove the wallpaper already on the walls before you can paint, or having to spread cement on the floors and wait for it to dry before you can carpet.It is a pretty easy and forgiving learning curve.HOWEVER! Let me just relate to you another funny story of when I was playing this with my friends.So we booted the game up and, logically, we went straight into party mode. The game flashes up the controls so we knew we had to use the A and X buttons (I didn’t know about changing the control scheme until later when I was playing it on my own).Anyway, the game doesn’t tell you much else. So a lot of stuff we just had to figure out on our own. Had no idea how to work the blueprints at first.And, I should mention that the blueprints are pretty important because only the person holding the blueprints can rotate the perspective that you’re viewing the house. This will make you able to see previously un-see-able walls or squares of floor that you will likely miss otherwise.So my friends and I basically failed the very first challenge four times in a row before we figured out things like: you have to have all the “tools” (including your player characters) out of the house by the time the clock counts down, or that you can’t have any trash or spilled paint, even if it’s in a room you weren’t even renovating.After the fourth failure on the first level, I was starting to get a little upset. I mean, sure, throw me into party mode without any hints the FIRST few times I play. But most games now-a-days have a little feature where if you lose way too many times at one spot, a little text thing will pop up on loading screens to say things like “Maybe you want to consider using fire on this boss”, ya know? There was this one level in Tools Up! where all of a sudden this strange bucket is just sitting in the house. We had NO idea what it was for, and on top of that, we couldn’t put any carpet on the floors that LOOKED blank and bare.After a while, we found out that you have to put the bag of cement into this special pail to create the extra step of flooring you have to put down before you can put the carpet on.I mean, MAYBE the game was giving us these “you’re losing too much and here’s how you can stop sucking” hints, but maybe we were clicking A so quickly after we lost that we missed them? Who knows?Final VerdictIt’s a fun little party game that would be perfect for this time of year, what with all the Christmas gatherings. It’s not going to blow your mind with innovation, but it’s going to provide you with warm fuzzies and fun memories. If you’ve played Overcooked to death and are looking for something that feels the same, but is new, then this is also the perfect game for you. It’s reasonably priced, and will provide many hours of fun entertainment.If you have children who hate each other and fight – like me when I was a child and I constantly fought with my brother and cousins – then here are a few suggestions:Totally get this game and watch the hilarity as your kids get mad when they pick each other up and can’t do anything.Be careful getting this game because you don’t think it’s all that hilarious when your kids get mad and scream at each other and then run to you about how the other one is making them so mad.If you’re a grown adult who can handle a bit of trolling, or who is a troll yourself, then I would definitely recommend this game for those silly “Ugly Christmas Sweater” get-togethers! Final Verdict: I Like It!