Everything's 3D-Man

Everything's 3D-Man is a 2020 platform game and game creation system developed and published by Clever Interactive. It is the second video game of the 3D-Man franchise after the 3D-Man video game. The game allows players to create and share their own levels to everyone online and can play other people's levels by searching them through the level browser. The game features a campaign which needs to be progressed in order to unlock set-pieces for the level creator which can be collected by finding presents scarred around in each of the levels' missions.

The game was originally slated to be released by the end of 2019, but was delayed a year in order to polish the game and give it more development time. It released on, , , , , Game-Fi X3, Game-Fi Portable X3, Kin, Lifestyle Gaming, and on 20 November 2020 with critical acclaim from critics and sold 11.23 million copies.

Gameplay
Players can control 3D-Man to make him move around levels. He has the ability to double jump, punch, spin, dive, long jump, side jump, do a backwards flip, and can move while crouching.

They can collect 3D-Coins that acts as the game's currency which can be used to purchase items and unlock blocked areas of a level. Coins can give the player an extra life if they collect 100 in a row. They can also receive an extra life if they collect a 1-Up item resembling 3D-Man's head. Other collectables include Star Coins that can be found in certain areas of a level containing three of them each, and presents that unlock new set-pieces for the level creator that have 10 of them in each of the level's missions.

The player can transform 3D-Man into 4D-Man by picking up power-ups comprising of four elements: Water, Fire, Ice, and Air. If 4D-Man gets damaged whilst under the effects of a power-up, he’ll transform back into 3D-Man until the player picks up that power-up again. The player can toggle into a third-person camera mode in order to precisely aim at a target.

The player has a health meter of 3 hit points which gets reduced if the player touches an enemy or a hazardous obstacle. If the health meter is depleted to 0, the player loses a life and has to go back to the last checkpoint. They can refill their health by collecting hearts. Players can increase their health by finding a Booster Heart which gives the player 3 extra hit points, increasing their health from 3 to 6. If they're damaged three times without refilling their health, their boosted health is lost and returns back to 3 hit points. If the player dies 5 times in a level, an assist block will appear which the player can hit to activate Assist Mode which gives 3D-Man a gold Booster Heart that increases his health to 8 hit points. The player will also not instantly lose a life if they get crushed or fall off the level, instead, they’ll lose a hit point and will respawn back to safety. When Assist Mode is active, Medals will turn from gold to bronze and will not count towards the Medal total. New levels can still be unlocked in a world when a bronze Medal is collected, but will not be able to access a new world that’s locked behind gold Medals until the player returns to a certain mission to clear it without using Assist Mode.

The game features a hub world of a spaceship which is used to select and enter worlds and levels, as well as accessing the level creator and the community level browser by using the elevator in the ship. It also includes a clothing room which the player can use to customise the appearance of 3D-Man by purchasing cosmetic items with coins collected throughout levels in the campaign.

Each level a player enters requires them to complete a mission in order to earn a star-shaped Medal at the end of a level. After completing a mission, the player returns back to the spaceship in which another mission is unlocked that the player can hop back into in order to collect another Medal which offers unique scenarios, stage layouts, and/or obstacles. Some levels and missions may feature sub-missions in which collecting a Medal will not return you to the spaceship until you collect the main Medal. These Medals are distinguishable by the fact that they lack the star shape on it.

When playing on community levels, the player's life count is maxed out to 10 lives.

Buddy Mode
The game features a local co-op mode called Buddy Mode, introduced in a software update in which a second player can play as 3D-Bud to help 3D-Man out in levels. The second player can switch into different play modes Sidekick Mode and Cursor Mode simultaneously by pressing a button. Sidekick Mode makes 3D-Bud appear in the world and can be fully controllable. He carries 3D-Man's moveset, but is unable to use power-ups. If he is far away from the game’s camera, he’ll respawn close to 3D-Man. Cursor Mode makes him disappear from the world and transforms into an on-screen cursor to freeze enemies and to pick up coins and hearts to give to 3D-Man.

On the version of the game, the second player can toggle motion controls while playing in Cursor Mode to move the cursor around more efficiently.

Demo
Before the release, Clever released a demo of the game on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and which let players play five of the levels featuring only one mission.

Post-release
An update to the game was announced to include the local co-op mode, Buddy Mode. It released on 5 December 2020.

Everything's 3D-Man VS
An online multiplayer version of the game called Everything's 3D-Man VS was announced by Clever. It allows players to compete against each other in minigames such as racing to the goal, killing enemies and racking up combos, collecting Medals, using their Air ability to guide their leaf boat to the goal, and avoiding being eliminated from a wave of coloured floor spikes. It was released on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, Game-Fi X3, Game-Fi Portable X3, Kin, Lifestyle Gaming, and Windows on 4 May 2021 as a free-to-play game. It does not feature any microtransactions, instead, players can sync their cosmetics that they’ve unlocked in Everything's 3D-Man to the game by linking their Clever ID to the two games, allowing them to use their cosmetics in the game.

Trivia

 * The game was originally planned to include an online co-op mode that let players control their own 3D-Man, which was what the box art was supposed to represent. However, because of how the game was designed, the mode was scrapped.
 * The supermarket level which featured food creatures as enemies inspired Max to create the first-person shooter game The Foodpocalypse.