Adventures of Shuggy

Upon giving it another try, this game is, in some aspects, better than I recalled and worse in others. The better part lies in the quality and variety of the levels. While the ultimate goal of each is to collect all the gems to clear them and gain keys to open other areas with their own sets of levels, it’s expressed through many different gameplay styles, with puzzles involving gravity shifts, multiple selves (even with different gravities), maneuvering small blobs, and so on. There are even three dozen levels designed for co-op with a second player. One downside is the graphics: the sprites are cute, but their animation overall creates the feeling of an old Flash game. The particle effect for collecting gems is hideous; it honestly looks better in screenshots than in motion. The other weak point is how slippery and imprecise the controls can be, sometimes even missing jump inputs, which is not ideal for a game where, short as the levels are, you have to start them over if you die - it can happen without you having really done anything wrong. The latter flaw is not game-breaking, just something that can make things more difficult than they need to be. It’s a very cute game, deserves its really small asking price, and lends itself quite well to short sessions of one or two levels at a time.