Before today, I'd never heard of this game, but I'm glad I have now! I looked at the new Humble Bundle available now and saw it in the > $1 tier, so I thought I'd pick up the average price tier and give this one a shot. I had expected it to be a kind of Metroidvania, but it isn't really. It's an adorable but surprisingly difficult action adventure platformer, that was well worth the price of admission. It took me about 9 hours and I got about 80% on hard mode, which I thought was juuust the right difficulty for me (although easy, normal, hard, and impossible are all unlocked from the start, which is nice :D ).
You play a little blob, of a species called Wums, who lives in the Wumhouse and gets thrown out (literally, from the 4th floor balcony) for being a lazy good-for-nothing who always gets ice cream everywhere. With nowhere else to go, you set out on an adventure to find a new place to call home. Sooner than later you get a head-mounted gum cannon, and that's when the game takes a turn to be the 'action' part of this action adventure platformer.
It is certainly odd playing a 2D game like this that ISN'T a Metroidvania. You never get any movement upgrades, and all progression is done through solving world puzzles to open up new areas via the story or just because you've gotten to a new location. From the moment you're flung from the balcony and your television falls out of your gut (making you far less heavy so you can jump much higher), you are as able to do the platforming as you'll ever be. You never get a dash move. You never get a third jump. You never get a local teleport. You get a bazooka cannon and a rapid-fire water gun fairly quickly, and you can also buy mods for your guns later too, but your general power level never really changes much, and your mobility never changes, period.
The world is big, bright, colorful, and alive though. Walking through Popo City (that's what it's called! He founded his own city of Wums! :P ) or through the amusement park and seeing all the other little blobby members of society waiting in ques (and you'll have to wait behind them for things like going through customs or riding the roller coaster), purchasing items, getting arrested by the police, it's a kind of microcosm of a society that I've never seen in a 2D game like this. Even the train runs on a consistent schedule and if you're late for it you'll have to wait for the next one. I'd have to say at least half of my nine hours playing was just wandering around the world looking for more people to help, looking for more film-reels to bring to a projectionist to play for me to learn the lore, looking for more whacky fun bosses to fight. It's kinda crazy JUST how much of the game's content is optional proportional to what isn't. It's hardly Breath of the Wild in terms of the "alive"-ness of the world, but it's certainly exceptional for a game from such a small team in a genre like this.
The world itself is great fun to explore though. A lack of any destructible or hidden walls means you're always exploring just what you can see, as most secrets lie in doing quests for NPC's that can range from fishing up someone's hat from the bottom of the polluted river to breaking someone's definitely-a-criminal friend out of jail! The platforming is very tight, and I never had a problem with it. The boss battles are also plentiful and always a good challenge (and if they're too hard, there are 4 difficulties at the start. I'd say a veteran to the Metroidvania genre would feel right at home on hard mode though). The most fun part about the boss battles has to be with the weird controls, or at least controls weird for a game in this genre. It may seem odd at first that you move with the left joystick and jump with left-trigger, but once you get your gum-cannon and learn that you use the right joystick to aim and fire it like a twin-stick shooter, the weird jumping button becomes much more clear. Though it seems odd, I never had a problem with how the game controlled (and the buttons are rebindable if you wanted to make them more normal-feeling :D ).
Verdict: Highly Recommended. Considering it's a buck right now and bundled with 2 other great games on Humble Bundle, this is something very easy to recommend. This is a great game full of charm and style and I've never played anything else quite like it. If you want something simple and colorful that the kids can watch if you have a weekend with nothing better to do, then this is something that fits the bill just right ^w^
You play a little blob, of a species called Wums, who lives in the Wumhouse and gets thrown out (literally, from the 4th floor balcony) for being a lazy good-for-nothing who always gets ice cream everywhere. With nowhere else to go, you set out on an adventure to find a new place to call home. Sooner than later you get a head-mounted gum cannon, and that's when the game takes a turn to be the 'action' part of this action adventure platformer.
It is certainly odd playing a 2D game like this that ISN'T a Metroidvania. You never get any movement upgrades, and all progression is done through solving world puzzles to open up new areas via the story or just because you've gotten to a new location. From the moment you're flung from the balcony and your television falls out of your gut (making you far less heavy so you can jump much higher), you are as able to do the platforming as you'll ever be. You never get a dash move. You never get a third jump. You never get a local teleport. You get a bazooka cannon and a rapid-fire water gun fairly quickly, and you can also buy mods for your guns later too, but your general power level never really changes much, and your mobility never changes, period.
The world is big, bright, colorful, and alive though. Walking through Popo City (that's what it's called! He founded his own city of Wums! :P ) or through the amusement park and seeing all the other little blobby members of society waiting in ques (and you'll have to wait behind them for things like going through customs or riding the roller coaster), purchasing items, getting arrested by the police, it's a kind of microcosm of a society that I've never seen in a 2D game like this. Even the train runs on a consistent schedule and if you're late for it you'll have to wait for the next one. I'd have to say at least half of my nine hours playing was just wandering around the world looking for more people to help, looking for more film-reels to bring to a projectionist to play for me to learn the lore, looking for more whacky fun bosses to fight. It's kinda crazy JUST how much of the game's content is optional proportional to what isn't. It's hardly Breath of the Wild in terms of the "alive"-ness of the world, but it's certainly exceptional for a game from such a small team in a genre like this.
The world itself is great fun to explore though. A lack of any destructible or hidden walls means you're always exploring just what you can see, as most secrets lie in doing quests for NPC's that can range from fishing up someone's hat from the bottom of the polluted river to breaking someone's definitely-a-criminal friend out of jail! The platforming is very tight, and I never had a problem with it. The boss battles are also plentiful and always a good challenge (and if they're too hard, there are 4 difficulties at the start. I'd say a veteran to the Metroidvania genre would feel right at home on hard mode though). The most fun part about the boss battles has to be with the weird controls, or at least controls weird for a game in this genre. It may seem odd at first that you move with the left joystick and jump with left-trigger, but once you get your gum-cannon and learn that you use the right joystick to aim and fire it like a twin-stick shooter, the weird jumping button becomes much more clear. Though it seems odd, I never had a problem with how the game controlled (and the buttons are rebindable if you wanted to make them more normal-feeling :D ).
Verdict: Highly Recommended. Considering it's a buck right now and bundled with 2 other great games on Humble Bundle, this is something very easy to recommend. This is a great game full of charm and style and I've never played anything else quite like it. If you want something simple and colorful that the kids can watch if you have a weekend with nothing better to do, then this is something that fits the bill just right ^w^