"The Trials and Tribulations of the Base Machine" is now on Steam! Is this demo worth trying?

I finally powered on my PC on Saturday afternoon. I was only looking for something new to casually try out, but then I saw that The Perils of the Base Machine had just launched on Steam, and a playable Demo was released alongside it. For someone like me, who usually only scrolls through messages on the subway and only gets to touch a computer on weekends, having a Demo first is already very user-friendly. At least I don’t have to gamble on luck like ordering mystery-box takeout.

Let’s start with the core gameplay: it’s a high-difficulty 3D platformer, and its style will clearly remind people of games like Only Up and Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy. You don’t play as a human, or even some small animal, but as a smartphone. You have to rotate, jump, and climb your way upward, all in an effort to return to your owner’s side. It’s a pretty memorable setup, and it somewhat captures the feeling of an office worker rushing to catch the subway home after work—pitfalls everywhere, and no room for mistakes.

The game’s key selling point lies in its somewhat “deliberately torturous” physics system. The phone can jump by vibrating, climb by rotating, and move between different areas with the help of tools. Just hearing that, you already know this isn’t the kind of relaxing weekend game you can clear while lying down. Put simply, if you often lost your mind from falling in Only Up, this game probably won’t be especially gentle with you either. But if you enjoy that thrill where one mistake can wipe out all your progress, then the Demo is definitely worth downloading first to get a feel for it.

That said, there’s another point that’s easy to overlook: it supports 1-to-4-player online multiplayer. Multiplayer isn’t just about running through the map together either—the phones controlled by players also have physical collision, and can even knock each other away, directly getting in the way of others’ progress. It’s a lot like playing a board game at a friends’ gathering: everyone says they’re playing together, but in reality they all want to sabotage the person across from them. If you have a regular gaming group, this mode might be even more worth the price than suffering through it solo.

In terms of time investment, I’d put The Perils of the Base Machine in the “try first, decide later” category. Since the full release won’t arrive until August, putting out a Demo on Steam now has basically already laid out the most important question: are you actually into this kind of high-difficulty platforming? For working adults, this is far more practical than watching a pile of trailers. After all, the time we get to play on weekends really isn’t abundant enough to casually pay tuition in frustration.

If you like the kind of experience Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy delivers—where you’re mentally breaking down while still hitting restart—or if you and your friends love trolling each other, then this is a game you can add to your wishlist first and download the Demo to try. On the other hand, if you’re looking for something easy to pick up and steadily progress through in half an hour, then this probably won’t feel like a great deal. Because for games like this, the scariest thing isn’t that they’re hard—it’s that after a busy week, you finally get two hours to play, only to spend all of it starting over in the same spot.

Looking at it overall, the smartest move The Perils of the Base Machine made wasn’t launching on Steam today, but putting out the playable Demo first. It leaves the choice in the players’ hands, and also saves people with limited time from paying another round of “regret tax.” My personal suggestion is simple: don’t rush to imagine it as a masterpiece—try the Demo first. If it makes you want to go again even after you fall, then waiting until the full release goes live in August before spending money won’t be too late.