Balancelot

I went in expecting a lightweight gag game and walked out with a new respect for anyone who can actually ride a unicycle. Balancelot puts you in control of a broke squire who can't afford a horse and winds up tackling a kingdom's jousting tournament on a single wobbling wheel, lance in hand. The core loop is immediately readable: tilt left or right with the analogue stick to maintain balance, use the shoulder buttons to roll forward or back, and jab your lance at whatever mythical nightmare wanders into your path. Simple on paper. Absolutely merciless in practice. The Steam community has warmed to this one more than most critics did on console - the PC version sits at a strong positive rating from its user base, which tells you the audience that actually sought this out knew what they were buying. And what they were buying is basically a QWOP-adjacent physics puzzle with a medieval coat of paint and a sense of humour that leans hard into Monty Python absurdity. You will leap gaps, shove logs, stab multi-legged lion creatures, and climb over the corpses of enemies you just lanced - only to topple forward two seconds later because a pebble caught your front wheel at the wrong angle. Checkpoints exist across the 20-plus levels, which range from fairy-tale grasslands through to dungeon environments, but they feel like small mercies rather than genuine breathing room. The visual style is the game's clearest win. Levels are rendered to look like an animated medieval tapestry, with character models and colours that genuinely feel pulled from illuminated manuscript art. It's a distinct look that sets it apart from the usual pixel-indie crowd, and it does a lot of heavy lifting to keep you from rage-quitting entirely. The audio lands similarly - jousting impacts, enemy squeals, and a background score that fits the absurdist tone. Where the presentation stumbles is in the cutscenes, which reviewers across the board flagged as blurry and badly compressed, like someone recorded them off a CRT TV. Here's the honest accessibility read: this is not a game for casual players or anyone who gets genuinely angry at imprecise controls. The lance combat is the most cited complaint across all platforms - hit detection requires you to connect at almost exactly the right angle, and since your lance position is determined by your momentum rather than a dedicated button, you are effectively juggling two wobbly systems at once while a seven-legged lion charges at you. Enemy and obstacle respawning bugs have been reported too, occasionally forcing full level restarts after lengthy checkpoint runs. That stings. There is also no co-op, no split-screen, and no multiplayer of any kind - this is a solo misery-and-triumph loop, full stop. For the four-friends-on-the-couch crowd, the only entertainment value here is spectating and laughing at whoever is currently failing. Who actually enjoys it? Players with patience for physics-based trial-and-error, fans of Getting Over It or the Trials series looking for something shorter and sillier, and anyone who finds genuine comedy in spectacular failure. The Steam crowd that stuck with it clearly found that groove. Everyone else should treat it like a party trick - fun to watch, painful to be the one doing it.

Riley · Scout Team

Sports & racing

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