3 out of 10: Season One Review :: Binge-Worthy

During the span of the pandemic, the number of people watching web series has increased significantly along with the number of people playing video games. Now, I am more of the gamer type of person myself, so I spend more time playing games than watching web series, but how about a game that is a series and a game at the same time? Terrible Posture Games presents 3 Out of 10, a playable sitcom filled with a huge amount of humor, mini-games, and some of the weirdest stories you’ll ever come across in a game.

Shovelworks Studios Welcomes You

3 out of 10  Season One consists of 5 Episodes with unique themes and interesting stories and is filled with different types of minigames. You play the game as ‘Midge’, ShovelWork’s newly hired animator after the previous animator got blasted (Yes). You join the studio and meet everyone, only to witness the game that they are working on is a complete disaster. It is an endless runner with an ending, so it’s now an ‘endful’ runner. You will get to play the game in the game itself, so I will spare you the details.

[Spoiler Warning: Skip this entire section if you want to go in blind!]

You go around interacting and talking to people in the studio, and every character you come across has their own story and personality – considerably different from each other. When you start the game in Episode 1, you find that a riot has broken out since a shark in the game has been wrongly labeled as the ‘Tiger Shark’. In an effort to calm everyone down, you try feeding them but that goes terribly wrong. Following this, the team decides that they have to resort to the last option: asking the engineers for help. The engineers are dark creatures that feed on interns (Yep, literally). This, understandably, shocks Midge and she can’t believe what’s happening. However, the team still feeds an intern to the engineer, who then diverts the riot into another important cause, saving the day. All this, is of course, not an ideal studio you want to work in (I know ‘you’ do). Hence, Midge decides to leave. However, the recruiting agency she was in contact with blackmails her, forcing her to work there, failing which her personal life will be exposed to the world, not to mention the threat to her loved ones. 

Which brings us to the second episode of the season, where Midge decides that the intern feeding process needs to be stopped. The team then pays a visit to the gaming school only to find out, it is nowhere near a school. The principal of the school is running a business program where she turns the students, not into future developers, but packs them into containers. This gets worse when Midge and the team find out her Business plan 2.0: to turn the interns into stackable desks (Don’t worry, it gets worse). They fight and defeat the robot army and the evil principal is now forced to stop this misery at once. The team celebrates, leaves the interns at the university, and goes back to the studio, relieved that no more interns will now have to suffer. 

Everything seems to be going fine until the day of “Half Way Through The Game”. The boss decides that the game needs to have a new pivot.  This new idea of changing the genre of the game puts everyone into a state of confusion and now everybody has their own ideas. When Kevin comes up with a Shovelworks Battle Royale, the Studio is turned into a battle royale battlefield, with equipment hidden all over. It quickly turns into a massacre at the end, and the final fight between Kevin and Midge is about to go down. Until the Boss decides to get into the fight with his minigun (Camper Noob). Midge then fights the boss and actually ends up winning, getting to proceed the pivot according to her choice – that is, not to change anything at all and keep the game as it was intended. 

This brings us to the 4th Episode of the game, which changes the look of Shovelworks completely. The boss has discussed with Francine about a meeting with new investors and wants the look of the studio to change completely. She then buys weird carpets, a giant T-Rex and an assortment of other items to completely transform the studio into a creepy theme park. In the midst of this transition, it’s discovered that someone has messed with the game files. Midge then decides to take this matter into her own hands and visits the engineer with an offering only to find out that the changes were made by Midge herself. On the other hand, Francine has bought bots from the rental store which have now taken over the studio. Viper comes to the rescue and burns every bot down, and the studio itself. 

This brings us to the final episode, where an unforeseen problem has occurred: Pylon’s face is now missing (Told you, it’s weird game… Sitcom… Netflix+game). Along with Pylon, Midge now faces the toughest decision of her life. The agency she was hired through is now blackmailing her, and claiming that if Shovelworks studio makes a hit game, it will be the end of the world. Pylon then visits the shady doctor who told him that this happens very rarely to people, and people can even change their heads. The doctor then puts his head into a shady device, which hits Pylon’s head all over, but soon his head is visible again. Pylon then finally makes it back to the studio and once again everything is alright, except for one problem yet to be resolved: Midge has to make her final judgment, and before we can know what she is up to, the season ends at a cliffhanger. 

The story overall is pretty fun, interesting, and unique. However, the back story which keeps everything connected isn’t strong enough. There was only limited info about Midge’s blackmailer, which could have been more interesting and could have further hyped fans up for Season Two. Nevertheless, the story still kept me interested throughout the season.

It’s A Game Too

3 out of 10 offers a series of minigames that are absolutely well-designed, and since each one is unique on its own, they kept the whole series interesting throughout. I found some games very interesting though others were just not my type, however, this game allows you to skip the games you deem boring at any time. So if you’re looking just for the story, you can do that freely. Alternatively, if you find the dialogues lengthy, you can easily fast forward and skip dialogues as well. The different types of mini-games offered in this game, of course, starts from the original game that Shovelwork’s is building. I personally found the game pretty hard, and never earned more than 2 stars. The other types of games include a tower defense, a top-down RPG, a beat-em-up, a cooking game, and other genres you’ve probably come across in your life as a gamer. There are many games I played over and over again until I got the full 5 stars, which is a testament to how well-designed and polished they are. It’s great that the developers have successfully delivered games inside the game about a studio that makes the game. 

Animated Sitcom Goals

3 out of 10 has beautifully crafted visuals, and perfectly delivers the visual experience it needs to along with the narration. The best part about the game is just how unique it is! In fact, I’d say it’s one of the most unique games of the year. The environment design and the fact that you can freely roam around in most of the stages allow you to freely enjoy the game as per your pace. You can even interact with different objects and visit different places across the studios. Not only are the narration visuals done well, but even the minigames are visually appealing and well designed. The fact that each minigame is unique on its own means that the devs made entirely new visual assets each and every time they made a new minigame, which is commendable.

Real talk

3 out of 10 is a unique, funny, and interesting sitcom filled with the weirdest stories, humor, and dialogues. Not only are the visuals great, but the game is also filled with tonnes of uniquely fun minigames that complement the storyline. It is an easy recommendation to those that love story-rich games as well as those nostalgic for retro adventures.