izigame.me

What even is this game?

A year ago I bought this game, because I thought it looked fun.
It is fun. But I have no idea why.
Plate Up: The Survival Horror Game
Having worked in restaurants, this game evokes the terror of missing an order, of moving too slow, of making even the tiniest fraction of a mistake and the whole world burning around you.
This isn't actually what it's like in a restaurant, customers are rarely so ruthless as they are in this game. But that's what you're afraid of. This game recreates that fear perfectly.
Plate Up: Tower Defence
They come in the day. A steady trickle that grows into a dreadful yellow tide that threaten to take everything from you.
They are weak to different weapons, and the combination only becomes harder as the game goes on.
During the night, you build your defences.
Plate Up: Factory
In order to have everything you need to survive, you start automating your base. Grabbers constantly shift food and plates to wherever you can most easily make use of them. Mixers chop and knead, plates get rinsed by themselves, you build an empire of machines to do everything you could possibly imagine.
But it's never enough. Your machines grow ever more complicated and yet... there is always more to do. Too much.
Plate Up: The Roguelike
Then you fail. If only you were a little bit faster. A little bit more clever, maybe.
Oh, well. Too bad. Time to go again.
You know I didn't actually think that would work. But if it did, I had to know. Too bad. Let's try again.
Suddenly you find your stride. You can do this. You can go FOREVER!
Oh well, I lost. Time to go again.
Plate Up!
Plate Up is a simple game. You can do everything with 2 buttons.
It's a bit fiddly at first, but you quickly start getting good with the controls. The improvement pace is massive.
Then you start reading a bit, in between the hectic days. You see the blueprints lying around you, and you wonder...
"What if I put that there? Or maybe here? Then I could... Oh, but that wouldn't work... would that work?"
This is a game which is extremely simple to play, easy to learn, with an enormous depth to master. And once you have mastered it, you can rope in your friends and show off.
But if you've read this far, you deserve a little prize. A lesson, from me to you.
You do not lose by making mistakes. You can make loads of mistakes.
You lose when you panic. If you don't panic, you won't lose.
And if you do lose, then you're in a sufficiently calm mood to try again.
That's why this game is so fun and addictive.