Key Takeaways
- Dumb Ways to Die is a fun VR addition to a beloved series.
- The game offers a variety of minigames set in different biomes, with a mix of simple and chaotic challenges to keep players engaged.
- The lack of prominent death scenes in Free for All may disappoint players seeking more morbid humor, but the game still offers lighthearted fun.
When my son was younger, we went through this daft phase of not wanting to let him use a mobile phone but finding it perfectly acceptable that he could use a tablet. Looking back, I’m not sure of the logic of why they were so fundamentally different, but it led us to discover the weird yet captivating Dumb Ways to Die.
If you’ve never heard or played it, it’s based on the YouTube hit Dumb Ways to Die music video that was part of a rail safety campaign. The game features the same art style and silly bean characters as the video and essentially plays like WarioWare. You complete various whacky minigames that seem simple at first but later pick up in speed to increase difficulty. You have three lives and a slip-up results in one untimely death for a poor bean (hence the name). Once you’re out of lives, it’s game over.
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If you don’t know the Dumb Ways to Die song, you have two options. Avoid it and save yourself from this eternal earworm, or Google it and live in the knowledge that it can pop into your head at the most random of times.
It’s simple, silly, and all too easy to enjoy for hours. Part of the charm was that it was easy to pick up and play, and we spent countless hours obsessively trying to achieve a new high score. As my son got older and moved on to console gaming, Dumb Ways to Die was all but forgotten by our family, until I heard it was coming to VR with Dumb Ways to Die: Free for All.
I’ve since learned Dumb Ways to Die has continued to expand, with currently four numbered titles, spin-off games, and even a physical card game.
Free for All takes the loveable beans on vacation by adding a travel theme, with the hub being an airport where you can dress up your bean with any earned cosmetics and choose from different ‘tours’ in varying biomes, which changes up the minigames you’ll get.
Much like the mobile games, minigames vary. Some seem a little too simple. Minigames where you have to deflect incoming projectiles can sometimes be as simple as finding one sweet spot to keep your hand to deflect them all, rather than wildly hitting each one back with more effort. However, others had me working up a sweat as I was trying to grab crabs, balls, coconuts (or whatever else, depending on the minigame) and try to fling them back into a basket, net, or hoop. Each tour ends with an extreme weather minigame, essentially a boss level that’s harder to complete. Some games fling so much at you that you try to use both hands to grab an item in each to double your output, and then it just becomes chaos. Good chaos.
Free for All is exactly what you’d want from a minigame title, it’s that perfect party game flavour for when you have friends or family around. But it’s also pure silly fun for when you want something lighthearted, and you can play solo or online multiplayer if you fancy throwing down against other beans. My only gripe is that the deaths are severely lacking.
I know, I must be a bit twisted to focus on the deaths or lack thereof, especially in a game fundamentally for children. But that was part of the fun. It’s baked right into the name! There are a couple of token death scenes. Beans in the background scenery, maybe one in an inflatable ring will drown or something, and at the end of each tour, there’s a screen where a bean gets killed. But they’re set pieces. You’re not causing the deaths by failing at the minigames. Believe me, I tried.
One of the minigames has you firing projectiles at crocodiles chasing swimming beans. If you fail to hit the crocodiles though, there’s no silly death scene. The bean just disappears. Another minigame has you fending off sharks from a bean in an inflatable ring. I let those sharks chow down and once again, the bean just disappeared before promptly reappearing for the rest of the timer. There’s no death, so the minigames don’t end when the bean ‘dies’. You’re scoring as much as you can within the time frame. The lives and deaths of beans mean nothing here.
And I really tried. Any minigame where I could throw things, I threw them at beans. I became a bean nuisance, attacking any and all I could see. No bean was safe. Or rather they were, as hitting them did nothing other than maybe lose you some points in whatever minigame you were playing.
I only played solo, so maybe once the game is out and I try out the multiplayer, I can attack other player beans. Or maybe they’ll be just as safe as the NPC beans. Either way, I know I’ll try. Sorry not sorry if I make your kids cry. Their bean deserved it and I demand bean blood.
Dumb Ways to Die launches today for Meta Quest 3 and 3S with 50 minigames for you to tackle, and plans for two future DLC packs to add an additional 25 minigames for each. Become your inner bean, grab a flight, and prepare yourself to meet my murderous bean in multiplayer.
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