Dumb Ways to Build Review - Dumb by Name, Smart by Design

Sometimes a title is enough to tell you everything you need to know about a movie, a book, and, in our case, a game. I mean, what do you expect from a game that has the word ‘dumb’ in its title? To be dumb, probably. But being dumb doesn't mean being bad; not at all.

Dumb Ways to Build is the kind of game I expected to be pushed into playing for the sake of review, and once I loaded it for the first time, the visual style that reminded me of Fall Guys (obviously apart from its predecessor, Dumb Ways to Die, but since I never played the game, Fall Guys is a better comparison to me) started telling me a story before I even began. Once again, I was wrong, because this game managed to entertain me and frustrate me in a positive way, which is rare for games these days, and I am very grateful for that.

Dumb Ways to Build springs from the same universe as Dumb Ways to Die, the darkly funny train safety campaign that turned into a viral song and, eventually, a whole family of games. This one comes from Australian developer PlaySide Studios, who swapped animated safety lessons for a nail gun and pure chaos, and that change happened to become the very thing this franchise needed.

AltChar

Dumb Ways to Build is a completely different game from its predecessor, and for the better it seems.

Journey, Not the Destination, Is What Matters Here

Dumb Ways to Build can be played solo or with friends, though the emphasis clearly sits with co-op, and its gameplay loop is quite simple but extremely effective. You play as Bean, a small builder who uses every skill and tool at their disposal to progress through the levels and reach a certain objective.

The best thing about it, though, is that the game won't bother for a single minute telling you what you must do. You'll literally be thrown into the level, and the only piece of tutorial will be a small, vague doodle drawn on the wall for you to decipher. You'll have to figure out everything on your own.

In Dumb Ways to Build, you won't find any particular story to follow, just an objective and a million ways to reach it. Why Bean goes where they go, though, is as vague as it gets. But at the end of the day, it doesn't matter even a bit. It's all about the journey here, not the destination.

AltChar

Dumb Ways to Build is a frustrating and funny game; however, the frustration is funny as well.

Do the Job Any Way You See Fit

The real beauty of Dumb Ways to Build is in the freedom the game gives you. As I said, the objective will be set ahead of you: ‘Reach the Hotel’, for instance, and the game will give you all the freedom to do it on your own terms. The hotel will be visible in the distance, but will you try to stack up the crates to get over the wall, or perhaps you'll find planks and nail them to the wall to make stairs? It's all legit, as long as you reach the destination safe and sound.

There are many things that can kill Bean on his journey, and the most common are falling and getting hit by cars while crossing the street. If you get hurt, you'll be able to restore your health by finding food and drinks hidden across levels.

As a builder, your main tool is the nail gun, and you'll be using it all the time to nail objects to the walls to make paths for yourself. You'll also use a sledgehammer to destroy what you build, and stacking objects around is also a viable strategy. The game is played from a first-person perspective, and the main mechanic is picking up objects, rotating them to fit perfectly, and then putting them down. Those object ‘adjustments’ can be really frustrating, and I believe they're designed that way on purpose, to give you an extra challenge.

AltChar

Crossing the street can be lethal to Bean if he's not careful.

Bean can also bounce off different objects, like parasols, and can place mattresses in certain spots to avoid damage if you miss a jump. The game also features ‘Certifications’, a kind of in-game achievement where you complete tasks in specific ways and get rewarded for it.

What I didn't like is that the game won't save mid-level, so if you leave a level and reload the game, you'll have to start over, even though there is a checkpoint system (you activate checkpoints every time you pass an outhouse). I know the game is designed so that each level behaves like an online match, but it wouldn't hurt to let players resume their progress, at least in solo play.

The multiplayer is designed to work with friends (I really couldn't find an option to team up with random people online), and playing online strips away some of the options you have in solo play. For example, if you play with friends, you'll be able to hold the plank while they nail it to the wall, but if you play solo, the game will let you freeze the plank in place for a while so you can do it on your own. A nice touch, really.

AltChar

Playing Dumb Ways to Build in co-op is the right way to play the game.

Visuals, Sounds, and Performance

As I said earlier, Dumb Ways to Build reminds me a lot of Fall Guys, and that's the art direction the game leans towards. The hand-drawn visuals, with a lot of bright colours and that unseriousness in the design, set the mood of this game very effectively. Even when you get frustrated because a ladder won't listen to you and stay where you want it, you simply cannot be mad, because who can be mad at such a cute game?

The sounds do exactly the same thing here. The main theme is, you guessed it correctly, ‘Dumb Ways to Die’, and it plays in the background inside the menus, but a completely different soundtrack plays during gameplay, which is very commendable, because the developers didn't want to overuse the theme.

The performance on my rig (Ryzen 9 5900X, RTX 3080 Ti, 32 GB RAM) was flawless, but that was to be expected, because Dumb Ways to Build isn't a game that will push your hardware to its limits. I played the Steam version, and it ran without a single hitch.

AltChar

Dumb Ways to Build is a very colourful game.

Conclusion

Dumb Ways to Build won't reinvent physics comedy, but it doesn't need to. Between the freedom to solve every objective however you like, the charm of watching Bean stumble his way to the finish line, and the extra joy of doing it with friends, this is a game that turns frustration into fun almost every time. The lack of mid-level saving can feel like a bit of disappointment, but a small one against everything else the game does so well.