Game Review: Dumb Ways To Die (Mobile – Free to Play)

Dumb Ways to Die is actually a public service announcement campaign by Metro Trains, Melbourne, Australia & is free to play. It was to promote rail safety & the video went viral after a huge social media following.

The video saw 21 cartoonish characters killing themselves in dumb ways ending with 3 being killed by trains because of unsafe behaviour. Thanks to the accompanying song it was a huge hit on YouTube.

The game was released in May 2013 & gave players the change to avoid the many hazards that kill the characters from the video. Keeping in line with the campaign players can also pledge not to do stupid stuff around trains.

Dumb Ways To Die perked up my interest thanks to a bizarre tagline in its app-store description…”Kate Moss’s favourite game, according to The Guardian”.

You know, Kate Moss the well-known gamer….

The entire game is just 15 mini-games that task you with saving the lives of the dumb characters. Every so often the game will indicate that it is all going to get faster & the allotted time you have to save the character goes down a lot quicker.

The mini-games are short but pretty clever (at least the first time you see then). You will have to flick piranha away from eating the genitals of one character, duck at the right time as one character pokes a bear with a stick & fit the missing letters in to spell ‘patience’ to name just a few.

Each come with their own amusing death sequence if failed & result in a life lost, lose all 3 & it is game over. Score thresholds unlock characters waiting at your train station (menu screen) & you can also unlock the original music video that started it all off.

The only real incentive to replay the game is to unlock the characters & set yourself a high score. Annoyingly your high score will depend on what random mini-games you get, there are a few that become nigh-impossible once the game has sped itself up significantly. Get a few easy ones such as ‘keeping the bi-plane afloat by blowing’ or ‘don’t push the big red button’ & you will get a nice high score easily.

Likely to keep your interest less than an hour with little incentive to keep playing. The cause is good, the game is not. Although the numerous deaths are kind of amusing…