HAYFEVER Impressions for Steam

Developed by Pixadome and published by Zordix Publishing, Hayfever is a 2D platform game that features Postman Thomas, a hardworking postman who suffers from various allergens that prevent him from delivering his mail adequately. Thus, he must work around these allergens in order to deliver each of his mail, and also reacquire lost letters blown away by the power of his allergy-induced sneezes. He also works with an ultra cute, sentient mail truck.

Sound

            Pros:

• Off the bat, Hayfever welcomes the player with cute and pleasant sounding music, which certainly adds adorably to the overall cutesy theme of the game. It’s also oddly calming during moments of frustration.
• Soundtrack/sound effects are also clear and balanced, with no unfortunately-placed piercing sounds that hurt the ears if a player is especially consumed by the game and is in a high alert state to deliver all their mail.
• I assume the music is also originally made, and with that I’m impressed, as the music has a very familiar and nostalgic vibe.

            Cons:

• Very cute, indubitably — but also perhaps a little distracting during times when absolute, total concentration is required to pass through levels with minimum frustration.

Graphics

            Pros:

• Again, cute music is always complimented well by cute animations and graphics. I was immediately pleased upon first starting the game.
• Graphics are very clear. Quality does not significantly decline too much with change in window/screen size.
• Graphical design is nostalgic and just overall very appealing to look at. I’m sure that if this game receives the proper exposure and publicity, merchandising would not be unreasonable at all.

Cons:

• Animations can be a little more original, to be honest. Some of the design is very reminiscent of older Asian-based children’s animations, such as Pokemon and
• Admittedly, as much as I love the overall aesthetic attractiveness, the cute aspects of it perhaps might be a little overdone — it was initially a little confusing to tell which encounters were intended to be a hindrance to the player’s progress.

Plot

            Pros:

• Very sweet plot premise. A mailman, sneezy with hayfever, trying to retrieve little lost letters with his sentient mail truck. Ugh.
• The beginning animated cutscenes laying down the premise of the objective was quite delightful and well done. I almost wanted to screenshot every frame and share it.

            Cons:

• If more animated cutscenes became available in conjunction with the player’s progress, it would actually be a lot more engrossing and interesting to play. If more of the plot was formed to conduct a proper storyline, it would be much more worth the adversities the player will face. If the game does actually accomplish this, and I unfortunately just have not gotten that far, then there would be no cons to list in terms of plot (at least for me).

Gameplay

            Pros:

• Simple enough gameplay. Not complicated at all, yet not too basic. In lieu of a long tutorial, there are very brief introductions to player controls.
• Very easy to catch on to the general maneuvers and functions of gameplay.

            Cons:

• The main controls used are the arrow keys, A key, and the S key. This was very awkward for me to get used to, considering I’ve never used the S key as a function to jump before. So trying to fight against muscle memories of using the W key in WASD mechanical controls to jump was a little annoying.
• There isn’t much of an introduction to the adversities the player will encounter, though, this is minor and likely isn’t that large of a deal to most people.

Reviewer’s Opinion

Conveniently, my ultra-fun-not-sore-loser-at-all gaming rage is especially pronounced in games such as the Super Mario series for Gameboy and Flappy Bird for iOS — so one could imagine that I had plenty of fun playing Hayfever, which is essentially a combination of the two. As a result, I would not personally play this on a regular basis, just to save me the extra stress and self-loathing. But surely this would bid well with gamers around the world who enjoy such emotional conquests.

Check Out the Hayfever Trailer:

Hayfever will be available for purchase on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows, and Macintosh operating systems via Steam on February 25, 2020.