The idea of Hot Lava is certainly cool. It seems like when we were kids, we all played the game “the floor is lava” at least once. Jumping around the living room or even the park, pretending that if you touched the floor, you landed in lava. That is the basic idea of this game and it is a pretty cool one.
How to Download Hot Lava
You can download the game from Steam. Click on the Download button at the end of this review. Check out also other cool games by Klei Entertainment: Griftlands, Oxygen Not Included, or Don’t Starve Together.
The Game Review
There is no actual “story” to the game here. Instead, you are playing to get the best times and to also unlock new areas to run and jump around in. There is a decent enough selection of levels ranging from a playground to a creepy basement and there is certainly a lot of imagination used to bring these to life.
The visuals in Hot Lava are decent enough. I like the various effects they have used and I do think that they have done a good job in making each level look different from the last. This is a game that is designed for PC and mobile so I think that is what stopped them from pulling out all the stops when it comes to visuals, but what is here works well enough.
The gameplay is what interested me the most. When I saw the first trailer, I immediately thought of Mirrors Edge. The reason for that is because this is a first-person parkour/free running kind of platforming game. I played it with an Xbox One controller and it worked great, I am not sure how this would work if you were playing on your iPhone with a touch screen though!
Each level has the goal of you getting from point a to point b. There are multiple ways you can get through a level and the better you do, the more stars you will earn. You run and jump to get through the level and there are tons of things in your way. I do think that there is a bit of trial and error here, but that is part of the fun.
If you have played Mirrors Edge, you know how when you make a jump, you can grab the ledge and pull yourself up. That is not the case here, if you do not nail a jump, you will simply fall. I do wish there was some kind of last dash grab animation as sometimes when you fall it feels a bit harsh.
There is a strange multiplayer component to this game, but I really could not figure out what the point was. You and others are racing or at least are on the same level, but there does not seem to be any rhyme nor reason to it. I much prefer to be just by myself as when others are on the course it is very distracting.
Overall, Hot Lava is a decent enough game and the idea is very clever. I like these types of first-person platformers and think the bones for a great game are here. While there is a decent number of levels. I do feel that the game is lacking in content a tad, especially considering this is not exactly a cheap game to buy.
