Johnny Platform has had a bit of a rough go at life. His childhood was probably scarred by churlish insults pertaining to his lime-colored noggin, his torso is is comprised of an orange, his cherry-shaded condom hat betrays his complete lack of fashion sense, and to top off this fruit salad, he is somehow stuck in a surreal world where he dissolves in water and has to push man-sized cookies to solve puzzles.
Johnny Platform’s Biscuit Romp is an odd little indie puzzle-platformer in which you take control of the eponymous hero in his quest to do something.
Okay, I’m not really sure what you’re doing, but if you just want to pretend you’re trying to escape this robot-infested world with giant lollipops sprouting from the ground, that’s fine by me.
Johnny traverses through single-screen levels by jumping on rifle-wielding robots and avoiding pitfalls such as water and spikes by jumping across platforms. The levels have a very vertical feel like most arcade shooters and it employs a vertical letterbox on your television where bars block off the left and ride sides.
The levels are each contained inside one colorful screen and the first few are entirely too easy. Unless you happen to lack fingers, you will have no problem jumping over the easy obstacles and defeating a handful of enemies while collecting Johnny’s precious coffee cubs, but the difficulty ramps up somewhere around the 20th level.
That’s where some really clever level design starts rearing its head. Some of the levels involve pushing blocks in a proper order, making more precise jumps and thinking a more abstractly about the puzzles, some of which involve passing through the left and right, or top and bottom of the screen to come out the opposite end.
It is possible to mess up a puzzle by pushing blocks in the wrong order or dropping them in the wrong place, but you can hold down the B button to reset the level with no penalty.
The game is very bright and colorful and the graphics are clear and precise, if a little too simple, a complaint I would say applies to the entire structure of the entire game. I know it’s an indie game, but I can’t help but want more from the game, especially when what’s there is so good. I appreciate the bite-sized nature of the levels, but I crave longer, more elaborate levels too. I envision labyrinthine levels with multiple paths, complex puzzles and more enemy types.
The entire purpose of the game is to jump on enemies and jump over pits, and thankfully the jumping mechanic is excellent. The jumps aren’t too floaty and I never felt like I fell through ledges or missed jumps due to the game, a plight that plagued far too many 2D games.
The game has a nice save feature where it autosaves every couple levels and you can pick up right where you left off. I really wish there was more than one music track; I cringe when I first hear the tune but then it sucks me in and is probably altering my brain structure. I’m humming along by the fifth level: hypnotized into a trance of killer robots, lollipops and coffee-fueled lunges over treacherous waters.
Johnny Platform’s Biscuit Romp was purchased from the Xbox Indie Games Marketplace for 80 MS points ($1) and this review is based on the full version of the game.
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