Developed by Forust and published by Leoful, The Company Man offers players a challenging adventure platformer inspired by the popular TV series “The Office”. You play as Jim, an aggressive up and comer that wants to climb the corporate ladder. As it turns out, the corportate ladder is corrupt and filled with utter mayhem. To advance, you must face despicable enemies, remarkable obstacles and master unique mechanics. As Jim fulfills his destiny reaching higher levels of success, new ways to defeat enemies will be unlocked.
The story begins on Jim’s first day of work. As luck would have it, an unfortunate encounter gets him an immediate demotion and is thrown into the lowest department in the organization – Customer Service. Armed with only a keyboard to start, each new area presents its own challenges and rewards. As you progress throught the grueling company, you will be able to cycly through your acquired weapons at any time, but be very aware that each one has different energy costs and strength. You’ll need to be quick on your feet and master your dash special move. This is critical to avoid the multitudes of enemies in hopes of reaching the typical boss fight at the end of the section.
There are a total of seven levels for players to explore, each having a standard boss fight at end before advancing. Cleverly, each boss you fight has characteristics based on the level. You will need to find enemy weakness and zip and dodge to avoid their special attack – again, similar to other games of this genre.
The reward system is based on coins. Each level and boss offer various coin-based rewards that players can then spend on upgrades. Upgrades revolve around health, weapons, and specialties which can be purchased from a coffee shop.
Health is an important commodity in Company Men. Health can be recovered at checkpoints in each level where there is a pot of fresh coffee. However, these checkpoints are usually uncovered after a difficult set of challenges. If you die, you are sent back to last checkpoint or the very beginning of the level.
All in, The Company Man is a fun platformer that offers very well crafted cartoon style art with unique gameplay. Whether it be customer service representatives with bad breathe that shoot fire or bosses that throw telephones, the game provides a campy fun vibe that old-school Warner Bros and Hannah Barbera cartoons used to dominate. Adding a modern office twist to something that was already great is an easy win.
