FickleFlame Review – a Quality Beginning to a Game With Some Issues, but Shows Promise!

From the first time that I saw FickleFlame, I knew the art design was a big reason why I wanted to check it out. I have a nostalgic soft spot for games with the black (or green?) and white aesthetics of old Game Boy titles and I’m a fan of 2D platformers.

The Story

As I began, I found it interesting that you play as a little boy or girl candle who has to set out and explore the world after a fog of death comes over the land. Meanwhile his (I played as the boy) fellow candles stay in their houses and dare not venture out! Yet, after checking in on your GrandCandle near your house, you go off in search of the eternal flame which can rescue your people from this terrible fog.

Gameplay

In fact, it’s so dangerous that you cannot stay outside for long before dying. You have a timer near the top of the screen that counts down each second as you are harmed by the fog. This provides motivation to have a sense of urgency as you traverse across multiple screens of platforming challenges. These involve navigating over water, avoiding crawling water monsters, and jumping on to platforms that take you to different places. Overall, the game has about 15 different screens or areas to travel through, some of which are optional, and one boss at the end. It isn’t a full game, so think of it more as a demo, and you will know what to expect. FickleFlame plays like a traditional platformer, but with occasionally multiple exits per area which branch out, allowing for some degree of exploration. This is appreciated, for the game does a good job of rewarding such excursions with HP power ups and money that can be used to purchase an upgrade. Note, it does feel like a metroidvania, but without much gated progression, at least from what I noticed in the first biome.

Dialog

All the while you’re coming in contact with different characters, candles and otherwise, through whom you learn more about the world. This is one of the better aspects of the game because the characters you talk with are pretty charming. They’re not laugh out loud funny, but I enjoyed their presence. I felt like they livened up the game with their small chats. The developer even added little comments to them, such as one having a hard time breathing, that further make the writing interesting. However, I want to point out that all the characters have a little repetitive noise that plays when their text is appearing on the screen. I didn’t mind this, but I thought some players may find it irritating. I didn’t notice an option to turn off the text sounds. I might have missed it.

Music

While I did enjoy the music, with some good ambient sound design, it wasn’t anything that I thought was amazing. I will say that I wouldn’t mind hearing more if they kept working on the game. I liked the boss music quite a bit, though!

Being Incomplete and Problems

Despite the title having both an inventory and map you can access; they are not used very much. As I’ve said before, there is only one equipable item in the game, and the map function is entirely skippable. Moreover, the game only has one boss. After beating it, there is a short ending that alludes to there being more to the story. All of this makes the game feel like it’s a bit incomplete. However, on the Steam page it says that it was released in this state so that they could receive feedback from players before continuing the title further. I give the developers credit for that, and I think working on FickleFlame more is worth it! Sadly, I feel compelled to share my experience with some glitches that hampered my enjoyment of the game as well.

My problems began with issues related to the default controller settings. For example, when I tried to use my controller in the main menu, it was like my directional buttons were on turbo fire! Pressing down would cause the cursor to fly down super-fast repeatedly, which made choosing the next option on the screen difficult. I had to use the keyboard to make menu selections. Once I finally got into the game, when I tried to jump with the controller, my character would only hop a short height. Once I fell down from the starting area there was no way to get back up without a restart of the game. I had to use Joytokey to be able to play the game with a controller. Furthermore, Alt + Enter did not make the game go to full screen, which was irritating. You have to hit the F2 key instead.

Additionally, the pits were a bit of a pain at times. A number of them were such that you’re not able to get out of them after you fall in. You just had to watch hopelessly as your character continually jumped up and down to lose health and then eventually die. There was nothing you could do to stop it, nor could you bring up a menu and restart the screen or area. This contributed a good deal of wasted time while playing. Perhaps there is a reason for instant-death pits in games after all?

Conclusion

Looking on the bright side, I thought FickleFlame had a good deal of personality. I liked the art design, the candle characters, and also the writing quite a bit. The platforming was competent and enjoyable, but some of the level design was frustrating (as I’ve already mentioned). Defeating the boss was satisfying and I was glad that I was able to take him out. Making him too easy to beat would have been a mistake. I do want to continue to play the game beyond the first area. Getting some of the bugs ironed our would be an important goal before charging money for a full version of the game, though.

Title: FickleFlame
Genre: Side-scrolling Platformer
Year Released: 2025
Developer: Alexander Blehm
Played On: Steam
Price Paid: Free

Remember, we can have different opinions about the games we play. If you like something more (or less) than I do, both of our perspectives are valid.