Valentine’s Day Review: Get Tongue-Tied With The Lickening

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, a brand new romantic saliva based dueling game blasts onto the scene. What can I say about this game – it’s strange, it’s hilarious, and I had a good laugh playing it. Since there’s clearly never enough saliva present on Valentine’s Day anyway, The Lickening gives you an easy way to, uh, give your friend a good licking. After which you can brag about how you licked them at the game. Licking, ho!

When the game first opens up, the first thing I noticed is the simplistic art style. In some cases, this type of styling wouldn’t work, but it does work oddly well with The Lickening. I really can’t see it styled much differently–I don’t think that it would have the same appeal, to be honest. OnlySlightly, the game’s developer, says that the original prototype was developed in under 48 hours. As far as I’m concerned, that makes it a pretty darn good game. And while it was polished a bit further afterward, it’s still commendable that the game could be crafted in such a short period of time. Originally created for  RunJumpDev’s “We Make Games” event, The Lickening is the perfect way to show your friend (or secret admirer, I won’t tell!) who’s boss on Valentine’s Day.

As far as options, you can easily adjust several items. Menus are controlled with the arrow keys. You can adjust:

• Powers: off/on
• Win type: Best of three, best of five
• Player 1: Gamepad/Keyboard
• Player 2: Gamepad/Keyboard
• Customize keys is available for both

This is helpful for those are used to non-standard key setups. The default settings use the arrow keys and WASD for movement of Player 1 and Player 2.

Next, you’ll choose your hero. Your have five options, one of which is…a bear. Hell, why not?  I picked the blonde and the bear. Just to be weird!

Gameplay involves trying to create the longest tongue without bumping into the other person. Which eventually ends up in something like this, if you happen to get the hang of it:

LSD tongues! I’m kind of partial to the patterning they use, actually. Bear in mind when playing that the tongues do the same thing old platform games used to do; when you exit one side of the screen, you enter from the other side. This can make it a bit trickier, but it’s easy to get the hang of.

While it’s clear that The Lickening isn’t likely to be picked up by Sony or Nintendo any time soon, the game is well put together and employs a silly style that’s really quite fun. Considering that I’ve played it four times today, I’d consider it a success. This is one that you should download, at least to duel with your friends on Valentine’s Day.

Visit OnlySlightly for more information on this and other games that fall within the umbrella.