Super Meat Boy Analysis

Super Meat Boy is a very simple, but very challenging platformer. It is extremely simple, only utilizing a basic jump, wall jump, and sprint mechanic. Developed by Team Meat, and released in 2010. Despite its humble, indie, origins, the game has met great success and praise, warranting a sequel currently in development.

 The game introduces Meat boy, and his apparent Meat lady. She is kidnapped by a villain in a dapper suit, and each level you must traverse to her, where she is once again kidnapped.

While the game's "tutorial" is ongoing, constantly introducing new scenarios to test the player, the first four scenes are lacking saw blades that can actually kill you. The scenes are solely for the purpose of letting the player become comfortable with the game's navigation and jumping.

The first two scenes are simply a ground with one platform the player must reach. First by jumping, then by wall jumping. Then, the third scene introduces sprint jumping.

The fourth is maze-like, and challenges the player to use wall jumping to reach the top platform, all the time being teased with saw blades just out of reach of the player. The saw blades are introduced in the next scene, and cause an on contact death. At this time, the player is expected to be capable of basic jumping and navigating.