The Adventures of Shuggy Review: Fangtastic Fun

In The Adventures of Shuggy, you star as, surprise, surprise, Shuggy – a purple creature that looks like it escaped the deepest recesses of Jim Henson’s mind. Shuggy, emulating our favorite, fanged friend (Dracula… not Henson), dons a black cape and sets off on an adventure.

But what doing, I hear you ask with pants-wetting anticipation? Exsanguinating herds of cattle? Mutilating entire mobs armed with pitchforks and torches? No, Shuggy shies away from Bram Stoka’s morbid musings, and prefers a fluffier approach to life. To that end, he tries to live the high life, and searches for a castle bequeathed by his “dead as a door nail”-grandfather. However, all is not what it seems, as the castle appears haunted by ghastly ghouls and ghosts. Thus, Shuggy stoically enters the property and attempts a fixer-upper.

The Adventures of Shuggy

Platforms: PC (Reviewed), Xbox 360

Developer: Smudged Cat Games

Publisher: Valcon Games

Released: 13 June 2012

MSRP: $5.00

Link: http://www.smudgedcat.com/shuggy

Shuggy commences his journey in the dungeon, an area consisting of a number of doorways, each of which leads to a self-contained level. As one level tumbles, you are granted a bone key, which aids in unlocking neighboring doorways. Collect enough keys, you open larger doors, behind which lies additional stages – the boiler room, gallery, graveyard and clock tower – replete with yet more levels and end-stage boss battles.

In the beginning, it feels like Shuggy lacks traction, and is as slippery as an intoxicated octogenarian on ice. Once you play a few levels, however, the controls feel more responsive and movement becomes second nature. I found the experience more enjoyable with a controller, but you may find otherwise.

As far as each level goes, the rudimentary objective lies in attempting to seize all of the perilously-placed gems, whilst avoiding enemy units and environmental pitfalls. Get hit by an enemy, though, and it’s instadeath. The levels start off simple, but gradually intensify in difficulty as you encounter the game’s smörgåsbord of enemies. As an added layer of complexity, The Adventures of Shuggy introduces problem-solving elements and level-specific physics.

Active abilities include shifting the entire level through 90 degree angles (my personal favorite), fast-forwarding time, teleportation, cycling through Shuggy clones, and using a Worms-style rope. Another ingenious mechanic grants the player the ability to go back in time, repeatedly encountering successive doppelgangers of Shuggy that re-tread your previous steps. This means “past Shuggies” can go press a series of switches, while “current Shuggy” traverses through a doorway that said switches have unlocked. This leads to some logistically tricky puzzles, where memory, timing and placement is critical to success.

These devices are all well and good, and really add something unique and fresh to the puzzle-platforming genre. But it’s the distinctive means by which these simple gameplay mechanics are incorporated into the various stages that makes Shuggy so enjoyable. For example, one of the first levels requires rotation of a maze to enable collection of a series of static crystals. On another occasion, however, Shuggy was grounded to the spot, while the gems were free to move under the laws of gravity; this meant manipulating the level to bring the crystals to you. During another level, a rope aids you in abseiling down a series of staggered platforms to reach crystals far below, whilst another involves adjustment of the rope’s tensile strength to ascend a tower laden with spikes. It’s the same fundamental principles, creatively and consistently tweaked over the 100+ levels. This makes for a game that imposes ever-changing laws and demands a change-up in tactics and play-style.

Unfortunately, a significant drawback is the difficulty. For certain levels, you could bludgeon yourself repeatedly with a frying pan and, in your dazed stupor, still muster the intellectual prowess to finish them off with aplomb. This issue is compounded by the provision of introductory graphics and text, for each level, which have a tendency to hint towards the solution. Don’t get me wrong, a good proportion of the levels are quite challenging and will test a number of mental aptitudes, including spatial rotation, memory, coordination and general problem-solving; it just feels that some of the basic levels are there to make up the numbers and, although fun, simply serve to protract the experience, rather than enhance it.

Although, apropos, if I were to play devil’s advocate, it is possible that the easier levels might serve to improve the tempo of the game, somewhat. Maybe not every level should be overly taxing, lest frustration replace satisfaction.

Cooperative gameplay is a mixed beast, as many of the same skills are put to the test, but with two players operating in tandem to help one another open gateways, rotate levels and traverse the terrain. The beauty of co-op lies, yet again, in the well-conceived level layout, necessitating both players to not only contribute but also work together. A neat idea involves gravity acting upon both players in different planes, so that one character walks along the floor and another character walks along one of the walls. One player may then pick up a block, wait for their buddy to hop on board, and then transport them to a, previously inaccessible, location.

When moving on to the “Teleporting Troubles” challenges, it appeared that the developers answered my prayers, as the difficulty starts to shift up a gear. Aside from allowing the player to use a single active power (i.e. teleportation) with passive ones (e.g. higher jumps), the developers have assigned an additional active ability to an extra button, thus, enabling teleportation to be used with, let’s say, the rope. These levels demand the same gem-grabbing tasks, but on a more advanced scale.

Ultimately, the main campaign, combined with two-player co-op, Teleporting Troubles and Steam achievements, ensures Shuggy has a great deal to offer. My only slight quibble would be the absence of collectables, secret areas and unlockables, which would be, respectively, akin to the bandages, warp zones and character unlocks found in Super Meat Boy’s bizarre world; this would have been the icing on the cake.

Meanwhile, the visuals were crisp, the art-style cartoonish, and the color palette vibrant and flamboyant. As a novel touch, many of the levels are framed to match the theme of a particular stage, whilst the whimsical soundtrack complements the game’s changing aesthetic. The enemy hoards are almost as varied as the gameplay, comprising of zombies, apoplectic robots, animated boilers, “Spikey Dudes” and leaping lava-fish, to name but a few. Each have different patterns of movement, some more difficult to predict than others, which adds to the overall challenge. Special appraise should be awarded to the developers for the boss battles, which typically involve dispatching an eccentric nemesis via creative means.

All in all, I haven’t derived this much enjoyment from a platformer since Super Meat Boy or Cave Story+. I can’t think of many games of the same genre that offer this kind of variety and originality. The masterfully conceived level design, fluid controls and solid puzzles help shape a game brimming with fun, whilst co-op and challenge sections bolster the single-player campaign. Truth be told, I felt disappointed once I’d finished the game; not because the game was bad, but because the game was over. And that is the test of a truly great indie game.

Advantages:

• Captivating assortment of gameplay mechanics, enemies and levels
• Local co-op and “Teleporting Troubles” features expand content, significantly
• Great soundtrack
• Moves the platforming genre away from stagnant roots
• Campaign, co-op and challenges amount to almost 180 levels, representing incredible value for money (under 5 bucks on Steam)

Disadvantages:

• Some single-player puzzles perhaps not challenging enough
• Collectables, secret areas and unlockables could have been the icing on the cake
• Limited number of achievements

Final Score: 88/100

(P.S. arbitrary scores mean very little. If you want an accurate picture of the game’s merits, pleased read the entirety of the review!)