Get It Together: Popgeeks Reviews A Wild New Homebrew

Dalyen Retro Games and IMP Games are bringing a new title to the original NES via Kickstarter: Get It Together. And by that name, they aren’t kidding. I’ve been following this one ever since it was submitted as a demo for the NESMaker Byte-Off Competition a couple years ago. I can safely say the NES never had a game like it in its lifetime and, despite decades of homebrews since, still doesn’t. It’s truly original.

It’s a puzzle platformer where you start each level literally in pieces and have to find a way to put yourself back together, using the individual abilities of each part of your body. The backstory explaining this is that “Chad Granite, genius chemist and supermodel” was working on a cure for death itself when a mad bomber rushed into his lab and announced his aim to blow up every single room in the company he worked for. The bomb in Chad’s lab was set off, but fortunately before then, Chad accidentally splashed the chemical on himself. It worked and he can’t die…but as the title says, he now has to get it together.

Chad falls apart again in each room, with the simple explanation that there was a bomb in each room. These bombs also explain the time limit of 60 seconds, which is all you have to survey the situation and decide the best COA to pull yourself back in one piece. The level starts off with a quip from Chad, which may be a hint toward the solution, but is sometimes just a pun. Chad’s head, legs, torso and butt start off scattered in different places. Obstacles and room layouts will block your way and must be worked around using the right body part ability. The head can roll, the torso can punch, the legs can jump super high, and the butt can….what else, fart. But its expulsions of gas are so potent that it can fly in the air.

There are three stages to the game. “A Scientific Boom” is the main plot and resolves itself there. Two more stages, “Depths of our Knowledge” and “Probing Concerns,” are also self-contained stories…in the first Chad braves the sewers to find the source of a disruption, and in the second Chad is abducted by aliens. Each stage is 20 rooms long, with the 20th room taken up by a boss battle.

Chad still falls apart in each room of these stages, though there’s no story explanation for that this time, and the time limit remains. “Depths of our Knowledge” introduces pipes as a new obstacle; Chad must work out which pipe goes where in order to reassemble his body, and he can only fit one part of himself into each pipe at a time. “Probing Concerns” throws in alien technology like transporters and energy beams. Chad can use the transporters whether in pieces or whole, but the solutions are trickier.

Part of what makes the game difficult is that you’re on the clock at all times. Pausing the game produces a blank screen, so you can’t take your time examining each room..and this means some of the later stages WILL get you because you couldn’t figure out the puzzle in time. Some advanced stages in Get It Together can be real head-scratchers, but there is an Easy Mode you can flip on when things get too hairy. Just exit the level, go to Options, turn it on and come back. In Easy Mode Chad’s parts are in easier-to-reach places and the time limit is longer. You can flip back to Normal Mode at any time via the same method.

When you need a break from the main game, there are four different “bonus games” accessible from the main menu. To the developer’s credit, they all have different gameplay mechanics than the main game…which, as someone who’s dabbled in NES programming himself, knows how much extra work is involved, so I’m impressed. Each uses a separate part of Chad’s body.

• Farty Butt: You may note when playing Get It Together that the controls for Chad’s butt feel a lot like the controls on Flappy Bird and…well, this was too easy. Enter an endless scrolling maze of pipes that use the graphics from Chapter 2. Weave between them as best you can, but they’re red hot, so don’t touch them or you’ll crash.
• Rooftop Rush: Using Chad’s legs, dash across a scrolling series of rooftop buildings, dodging obstacles until the time runs out. The goal is to keep the clock running as long as possible by picking up items along the way that add precious seconds.
• Lab Jab: The simplest of the minigames uses Chad’s torso and one button. In the sewer, an endless cascade of lab rats and bunnies rushes down a waterfall..but so, for some reason, do live bombs. Knock the animals into their cages while avoiding the bombs…mistake one for the other, or miss a bunny, and the game is over.
• Noggin Pong: It’s actually Breakout, not Pong; you’re using the rest of Chad’s body to keep his head bouncing in the air, with the goal of breaking all the bricks on screen. There are a couple twists here that take it beyond vanilla Breakout; Chad can jump, which adds an extra axis to the “English” you can put on the bounce of his head, and the floor beneath him is fragile. If the head hits the ground, that part of the ground will break off. The more times you miss Chad’s head, the less space you have to catch it with, and that eventually brings your game to an end…though the floor will reset if you reach another level.

My review copy of Get It Together was pretty much near-complete — creator Brad Hammond said to watch for bugs, but I didn’t find any. The Kickstarter campaign offers a digital ROM for $10, a physical cart, box and manual for $65, or a Collectors Edition with a glow in the dark cartridge for $100. I fully recommend it. You won’t want to miss this unique experience on the NES.