The Next Floor puts you in the shadowy shoes of.... someone who is in an elevator... somewhere, and desperately defending it against... something that wants to... do... stuff to it? Look, if you want something deep and meaningful, you're in the wrong bloodstained, bullet-ridden corridor. The rest of us are content enough with knowing that the elevators are ours and something else wants them.
Actually, here you're defending the elevator shaft, since the various elevators you can purchase all have their own hit points. When enemies reach you, they'll begin attacking whatever is in front of them. If it's an elevator, and the hit points reach zero, the elevator will fall. Make sure you're not in one when this happens! If it's the elevator shaft, the mammoth life bar at the top of the screen will slowly deplete until nothing remains and you lose the game, forcing a restart.
The interesting mechanic here is the ability to purchase new elevators and switch between them by clicking on one and dragging it over another so they swap position. Since you can arm your elevators however you like with various upgrades, you can fill one with rocket launchers, the other with machine guns, and swap them around as needed. You can also join the fray yourself, by moving left or right with the [A] and [D] keys, and holding down the left mouse button to fire.
Analysis: The game only has one difficulty setting, which isn't actually challenging until late in the game. Even if you're swarmed during a level and barely manage to squeak out a victory with a fraction of health left, the damage to all elevators and the elevator shaft itself is completely repaired between levels. Unfortunately, if you do lose, you have to start the entire game over again.
At only fifteen levels, The Next Floor is fairly short, but it's this tight little package that makes the whole thing such breezy fun to play. Once the cash starts rolling in, you'll find you have more than enough to customize your weaponry to take on even the increasingly dense swarms. The action starts to get particularly heavy in the last half-dozen levels, where multiple types of creeps will appear on the same floor. Large enemies can shield smaller ones from harm, which can make things more than a little hairy when they've all swarmed up to your feet at once.
Funnily enough, the one thing I really felt the game missed out on was using actual elevator music in a game that takes place within elevators. I was really hoping for some bouncy little muzak rendition of "The Girl From Ipanema" played on a synthesizer to make the game feel more cheeky than gritty. As it stands, The Next Floor is a fast-paced, exuberant little title that will easy eat up a coffee break or two without breaking a sweat.
Walkthrough Guide
(Please allow page to fully load for spoiler tags to be functional.)
When I played the game, I thought it was pretty good, so I decided to make a walkthrough. Please note that I can't guarantee that you'll live, part of it depends on where you move your character.
Walkthrough:
Day 1
Stay and fire.
Buy a Turret Gun.
Day 2
Stay and fire.
Buy a second Turret Gun.
Day 3
Walk onto the second floor corridor and drag the elevator down. Hold and fire.
Buy an Elevator and buy a Turret Gun for the second elevator. Upgrade it. Buy a second one for Elevator 2 and upgrade one of the Turret Guns on elevator 1.
Day 4
Stay in the Elevator and switch when the enemies on the other floor begin to get closer to the shaft. Keep switching if needed.
Buy another Elevator and purchase a Machine Gun for Elevator 3.
Day 5
Stay in the Elevator with the lone machine gun (as it is the weakest) and keep switching Elevators when necessary. (From now on, the strategy of switching Elevators is a given, to save me some typing :P)
Purchase a Laser Cannon and another Turret Gun in Elevator 3.
Day 6
Move to either Elevator 1 or 2. Elevator 3 should be powerful enough to be left alone.
Buy a 4th Elevator and purchase 2 Machine Guns for it. Upgrade the Level 1 Turret Gun in Elevator 1.
Day 7
Stay on the 2nd floor from the bottom, and switch the Elevators so that Elevator 3 is in the same hall you are in. There are some tough enemies here, so you'll need the firepower.
Purchase a Laser Cannon for Elevator 1. Upgrade the Level 2 Turret Gun in Elevator 2. Upgrade both Machine Guns and buy a Power Blast Cannon in Elevator 4.
Day 8
Watch the top 2 floors. Keep switching Elevators 3 and 4 between them to help you out.
Purchase a 5th Elevator. Buy a Rocket Launcher and a Turret Gun for it. Then upgrade the Machine Gun in Elevator 3 and upgrade the Level 1 Turret Gun in Elevator 2.
Day 9
Watch floors 2 and 4. They contain those high-health guys you saw before.
Buy a Laser Cannon for Elevator 5 and upgrade it. Buy a Machine Gun for Elevator 2 and upgrade it.
Day 10
Floor 4 will have a new type of enemy, one that's even more resiliant to firepower.
Buy an additional elevator and purchase a Machine Gun and Turret Gun. Upgrade the Machine Gun.
Day 11
Stay one your toes, this will get harder. Otherwise, nothing too special, but you'll need to switch often in this one.
Upgrade as many Laser Cannons as you can, then upgrade your Power Blast Cannon and as many Rocket Launchers as you can. The precise ones don't really matter. Upgrade the Turret Guns in any of the remaining Elevators.
Day 12
In this one, focus on the smaller enemies. Use the Laser Cannons to sweep them all out. This level is much harder, I almost had an Elevator destroyed. After all the smaller enemies are gone, focus on the large ones.
Buy an additional Elevator. Purchase a Laser Cannon for it as well as 2 Rocket Launchers. Upgrade one of the Rocket Launchers.
Day 13
Slightly harder than Day 12, but again, nothing special.
Upgrade both Rocket Launchers in Elevator 7 until they both reach level 3 and the Laser Cannon. Upgrade the Laser Cannon and both Turret Guns in Elevator 1. Upgrade the Machine Gun and the level 2 Turret Gun in Elevator 2. Upgrade the Power Blast Cannon in Elevator 4. Upgrade the Machine Gun in Elevator 3. Upgrade the Turret Gun 3 times in Elevator 3. Upgrade the Turret Gun in Elevator 5 twice. Upgrade the Turret Gun in Elevator 6 twice.
Day 14
Pretty tough. Depending on how you play, it might be a close call.
Upgrade the Laser Cannon in Elevator 1. Upgrade both Machine Guns 3 times in Elevator 4. Upgrade the Laser Cannon in Elevator 5. Upgrade all weapons in Elevator 2 until level 5. Upgrade the Turret Gun and Machine Gun in Elevator 3. Upgrade the Turret Gun in Elevator 6. This is the last level, and we're gonna need to go all out!
Day 15
The toughest level yet. You'll need to keep balancing the Elevators out, between each other. The first floor should be a problem at all, however, the one floor without any of the toughest enemies should be paid close attention so they don't get too close to the shaft. It's not too hard, none of my Elevators suffered any damage.
Congratulations, you just beat The Next Floor!
Posted by: Kli1195 | August 10, 2009 5:06 PM