Zefalo is a Dutch platformer created as part of a Dutch campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of alcohol abuse, "Drank maakt meer kapot dan je lief is" (Drinking destroys more than you hold dear). You control the titular Zefalo, a tiny superhero who goes into drunk people's brains to make them sober again. You can choose from four difficulty levels, each corresponding to a different person whose brain you enter, although the overall level layouts remain the same. Each level represents a different part of the brain, going from emotions to motor skills, senses, and finally memory.
To beat a level, you go around collecting alcohol molecules that are lying around, and bring them to garbage bins to dispose of them. So you go around flipping switches to open doors and activate platforms, and avoiding enemies and hazards. You can only carry 5 at a time in your backpack, which unfortunately means a lot of running back and forth to dispose of all the alcohol you need to beat the level, and thus the game ends up getting tedious really quickly. The biggest point of aggravation, however, are the controls. This game has easily the worst jumping controls I've ever seen in any game ever: to jump, you hold the jump button and then release it to go straight up, or hold left or right while holding the button to jump sideways. When jumping up, you can only move a few scant pixels in either direction while in mid-air, which means you have to be right next to whatever you're trying to jump onto. Even then, the regular jump is too short to even make it onto most platforms, so you have to hold the run button while you press jump to jump higher, which makes me question why the short jump even exists. Worse, a sideways jump early on in the first level requires you to stand EXACTLY on the edge of the platform you're on or you won't make it.
The level design is completely unfair to boot. Hazards and enemies are often placed directly in your path with barely any way to avoid them, especially with the crippled jumping controls, and worse, healing items are in pits of deadly acid seemingly just to spite you. Not to mention just finding your way around is a chore because the levels are pretty much mazes through and through. I tried, but I couldn't bring up the patience to even beat the first level. The game does have decent graphics and artwork, but the design of the levels doesn't really seem to fit the theme the game is going for. The Adlib music is decent enough, if repetitive, but the sound effects are awful with Zefalo constantly making the same annoying noises whenever he jumps or takes damage.
In the end, Zefalo remains little more than a curiosity and not worth seriously playing. I give it a 1 out of 5.
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