Let’s venture into songs with lyrics again. Here is You Have to Burn the Rope’s Now You’re a Hero, by Henrik Nåmark. Yep, a music by a Swedish composer!
You Have to Burn the Rope is an action-packed game starring a nameless, bowler-hat wearing character who’s specialty is to throw axes. As he traverses through a long and windy tunnel, he finds at the end a beautiful dinner room with a giant, menacing monster: the Grinning Colossus! Our hero bravely chucks axes at the boss, but to no avail. The Grinning Colossus’ health regeneration prevents the hero from making even a small dent. Desperately avoiding the bullets shot from the boss’ eyes, the hero finds a cryptic engraving on the wall: “You have to burn the rope!” As if he understood perfectly, the hero grabs a burning stick off the wall, climbs to the ceiling, and acrobatically burns the rope that’s holding up the chandelier. With the support gone, the chandelier falls onto the Grinning Colossus, bringing about its terrible demise!
If you couldn’t figure out from the title or the description above, yes, the game is a joke. It poignantly points out an impractical commonality in many action games: defeating a boss requires tactics that seems to completely ignore the abilities you’ve worked so hard to master. Once the boss is defeated, Henrik’s song plays, creatively noting the game’s sarcasm.
Despite it’s short gameplay, You Have to Burn the Rope actually had a brief following. Fans wrote in-depth reviews and guides to play and finish the game, frequently praising it for its complexity. Developers like Michael Ancel praised the creator for its “creativity.” It was even awarded as a finalist for 2009’s Independent Games Festival for Innovation.
You Have to Burn the Rope is playable online at Kongregate.
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