Floor kids is an interesting twist on the rhythm game, where rather than having to input a precise series of button combinations to a precise timing you have the freedom to express your creativity to the rhythm of the game through 16 different movesets per character and what is stated to be hundreds of transitions between them. Having said that there are a few factors that do influence your scoring on the levels from keeping a rhythm, expressing your creativity, introducing hot moves, pulling off crowd requests in a timely manner and executing the chorus to perfection.
What does this all mean?
Well quite simply it means that while you are free to do whatever you want if you want the best scores you are going to have to try to do your moves to the rhythm of the tune, factor in crowd requests as this will be 1/5th of your score to adapt as quickly as you can to get their unreasonable requested moves pulled off. You do have a little freedom with your move as the 4 different sets have 4 moves and any of those moves within that style of move will work but you will have to account for how quick your character will transition as sometimes it takes longer than the patience of the audience on later levels making this a harder challenge than you would imagine.
The chorus of course twists the entire thing back on it’s head again with actual timing mechanics required to hit the beat on the correct time, that being said you’re still free to press any button to win here, and between each set there is a button mashing segment to hit everything as hard and as fast as you can, which makes getting a perfect score practically impossible for most people here, but still it’s a good segment to take out your frustrations for missing the beats on the previous segment. The chorus’s are pretty infrequent so they won’t be something that eats up your entire time of the gameplay but still count a significant portion of your score if you’re looking to perfect every level.
There are 8 characters all with their own movesets who you have to unlock over 40 different levels so if you want to unlock everyone and do everything there’s a lot of gameplay here as well as online multiplayer dance battles where you take turns to out score your opponent in the same track. Each character has their own specialisations and do have different styles of break dancing expressed through spins as well as holds and floor moves and have their own feel even though the gameplay mechanics remain the same.
I do also like the art style expressed using a hand drawn cartoony style that definitely fits within a break dancing game, and all the characters have their own personalities expressed well which fit their dance move styles expressed so a lot of consideration has been taken in expressing the break dancing genre in a rhythm game rather well.
But Is The Game Fun?
Yes, quite simply. You’re granted a lot of freedom to express yourself however you want, going faster or slower depending on how you’re feeling the rhythm, just don’t stop otherwise your character will literally stand still looking like a lemon in the middle of the dance circle, and you’re free to transition and vary your moves up as much as you want, adding heat and flare wherever you feel it fits and while you’re better off listening to the crowd and trying to hit all of the chorus beats you’re not going to entirely fail the level by ignoring or missing these, and they’re pretty infrequent so you’re not hemmed into following precise inputs to win while having short burts that do fit in because everyone knows the chorus right? And that’s why you’ve got to fit the exact known moves just to win over the crowd, whereas the rest of the song you get to express your creativity.
I enjoy the game and you’re going to have a lot of fun unlocking all of the characters, you might get a little unlucky with unlocks with the cards leaving it later until you get to unlock the majority of the characters, but getting a new character ads variety and you get to enjoy their different movesets and styles if you choose to go back and perfect previous levels to gain access to the final level, and it stands out from other games in the genre being quite different in it’s gameplay mechanics so it’s pretty unique in that aspect.
Get floor kids for yourself on steam at https://store.steampowered.com/app/821640/Floor_Kids/