Tools Up! Review

Not quite Overcooked.

Overcooked’s four-player cooperative gameplay is so renowned for crushing friendships, relationships, any and all positive feelings about other humans that is apparently called ‘Divorce Kitchen’ in China. So, it’s no surprise others have taken the concept into different directions. In the case of Tools Up!, that direction is home renovation. And yes, the exclamation point is part of the name.

Tools Up! tasks up to four players with coordinating and cooperating home remodeling. It’s a clever idea. There are blueprints somewhere in the abode you’re working on that show what you need to do – paint the living room walls, replace the carpet, demolish a wall, fun stuff like that.

Using an apartment building for its overall world map, it starts out pretty simply and ramps up with each floor. So, each new apartment is a little more complicated than the last, providing several hours worth of apartments to tear up. There’s also lava, because why not? Beyond the main campaign is a series of mini-game challenges that focus a lot more on the competitive side of things for even more mayhem.

Each level is timed, which can be a real issue at least partially thanks to clumsy controls and characters. Literally, in the case of the latter. Paint cans are particularly odious villains. They are absurdly easy to knock over, resulting in not just an unsightly spill that needs to be cleaned up, but a slipping hazard for the portly crew. Falling down wastes precious seconds and is also annoying. 

Piles of garbage oddly cause the same reaction and it quickly becomes obvious the developers did this on purpose to make us hate them, the other players, and ultimately ourselves. See, those rotund contractors you play? They’re round largely to make sure they get in each other’s way, so that if two are trying to pass each other and there’s a paint can, you can’t help but trip over it.

Doors are another problem. You can’t open them when holding something and it’s way too easy to accidentally tear one off the wall instead of just open it. The controls are an odd bird. Tap the controls to pick up, drop, or otherwise activate something. Long press to do work with something. A second button lets you throw things. Hold the button down in front of the insidious paint can to soak your brush, then go up to a wall and hold the button down again to paint it.

Flooring works the same way. Fill up on flooring (or something), then find a spot that needs it and hold the button down to lay it. It sounds simple enough, but there is literally no guidance at all and at times it’s a trial to just find the exact right spot where you can perform an action. So, the learning curve is steep at the beginning.

Once over that hurdle, though, it’s really a matter of how coordinated you are with the other players. With a good team, Tools Up! (like Overcooked) can be a fine synchronized dance. Toss supplies to another player in a different room, tear up the old floor as your partner deftly lays down a new one right behind. Those times when everyone knows their role and goes about it quickly and effectively to earn three stars at the end are magical. 

At least, I imagine they are. I played with my children who thought knocking over paint cans and picking up the other players and running around with them was the highest form of comedy. Regrettably, I had no choice but to put them up for adoption.

I’ll miss them. A little.

So, what’s the verdict here? Tools Up! has a ton of potential. It just needs a bit of tweaking and user-friendliness, but still offers a solidly absurd cooperative multiplayer experience. The game is frustrating and hilarious in nearly equal measure, which has a certain appeal for these kinds of shared experiences. Just, you know, maybe not with the children.

[Reviewed on Switch]