Saving your files, one screen at a time

Like platformers such as Celeste or Super Meat Boy, MainFrames’ levels consist of quick rooms with instant respawns. Your character (a sentient floppy disk named Floppy) controls easily. Floppy can move, jump and do a little mid-air spin to keep them afloat. It’s very simple, but Floopy feels great to control.

The gimmick that sets MainFrames apart is the ability to control the environment. Using a mouse cursor, the player can interact with windows on the screen and alter the stage. Using the cursor, Floppy can move platforms, activate new windows to jump on and more. Most of the game’s eight levels add a new type of window to interact with.

I really wish MainFrames did more with these environmental manipulation mechanics. It’s a cool but underutilised idea, with your control over the environment being far too limited. The mechanics frequently don’t match the computer setting, and feel like they could be placed into any platformer. MainFrames starts strong when you’re dragging platforms around like they’re real computer windows. But it’s far less interesting when you end up just turning platforms on and off for most of the game.

Despite new mechanics in every level, MainFrames’ adventure ends up feeling very samey. A lot of rooms boil down to running forward and moving the cursor to activate the next platform in front of you. It’s shocking how often you run into a room like this, especially since the game is quite short.

The other frustration is how often MainFrames slows down. Sometimes a room will require you to hit a button several times or for Floppy to run on the spot before you can continue. Since the game is built on quick restarts, you’ll need to repeat these activities every time you fail. Too much of MainFrames’ runtime is spent in sections that are frustratingly repetitive or disappointingly simple.

These mechanics also introduce moments where the controls stop feeling great. Floppy is a lot harder to control once gravity starts changing. The game requires complex upside-down platforming, and although it’s intentionally disorienting, Floppy doesn’t feel very smooth to control in this state. There are also a surprising amount of levels that the player can skip by jumping above the platforms, or dragging Floppy with the cursor. Although this seems intentional, there are far too many instances where skipping is possible.

There are some randomly scattered windows across the game with some gorgeous little scenes. Seeing daemons operate complex machinery or taking a break at the coffee machine adds flavour to your adventure. But these rooms alongside the wallpaper backgrounds aren’t quite enough to save each level from looking rather samey.

I experienced some minor visual glitches, but nothing too disturbing. Occasionally, text would blend into the background, and the level loading screens broke after the fourth level. However, these are minor irritations. MainFrames is a very smooth ride and a small update could easily fix these issues.

Just like their controls, Floppy’s animations are simple yet terrific. Floppy’s actions are easily readable, but there’s so much peppiness included in idle animations or small interactions with the environment. The soundtrack also adds a lot of vibrancy to the game with its fun energetic chiptunes.

There is technically a story in MainFrames, but it’s more of a footnote than a driving factor. The game starts with Floppy living in their home, before being suddenly ejected and forced to navigate this new world. The adventure just sort of… goes. The game sets up a very minimalist narrative, so it’s surprising how much talking and exposition follow this barebones setup.

Between every level, you spend time talking to a penguin mascot and some other daemons that inhabit the computer. Sometimes the dialogue has a bit of charm, but it’s mostly a dry distraction to divide levels. I wasn’t sure what I was even doing for most of the game. I tried to pay attention, but the dialogue was so infrequent and unfocused. MainFrames does lead up to one interesting story moment and an eventual cute climax, but it’s all a bit sudden and unearned.

While MainFrames focuses on the sentient programs within the computer, there is a secondary story regarding the computer’s human users. This is told through environmental storytelling, except the environments are massive walls of text displayed in broken emails. I’m not sure exactly how much you’re meant to gather from these. The emails are realistically dry, but the game delivers a tell-all exposition dump in the finale anyway.

Neither pillar of MainFrames’ story really works, which wouldn’t be an issue if the game wholly focused on its gameplay and setting. But with Floppy’s inciting incident and so many opportunities to chat with the computer residents, a lot of time is spent building this messy narrative.

In the end, MainFrames leaves you with a lot of elements that don’t quite click together. But some core pillars of the game just aren’t that interesting to begin with. It’s a simple little game with some strong aesthetics. Nothing here is outright bad, there’s just not much to get out of this adventure either.