Ugly Animals
Cerasus.media
Free on Apple iOS
This game bills itself as an hilarious physics puzzle game, but only two of the three are correct.
The premise goes that Derpy Duckster (points for the name) and his equally moronic looking friends are in love with the “hottest girls in town”, denoted by large cartoon lips, eyelashes and pink bows on the likes of ducks, fish and snails. I’m assuming these attributes make said animals “hot” – like Iago’s teeth and Lola Bunny, I thought bizarre and often stereotypical anthropomorphisation of cartoons was a thing of the past. Ah well.
These women are apparently only interested in shy, nerdy types if they are given expensive gifts and, being “demanding”, want these gifts placed in an exact area.
For a game that involves placing something in a specific area given a variety of tools to do so, this just seems like a weird angle to take, and the ideas inherent in the plot line are not ones I’m comfortable with. Nerds can’t get girls without expensive gifts? Girls and their attractiveness are defined by overly emphasised feminine characteristics? Males are not worthy of female attention if they don’t lavish time and money on said females? Females are things to be coveted and bought? Ugly people need to buy love?
Okay so I’m reading into it way too much, but like I say, for something that didn’t really NEED a plot, the angle just seems weird. Moving on from the (shaky) plot (actually explained in a series of drawings, and the description on the App Store), the game is simple and easy to work out, with guides, and a help option which becomes available once you’ve made a certain number of unsuccessful moves, and not once you’ve earned coins etc, which is neat.
It’s free to play but has in-game ads and purchase options, however these are managed well and aren’t too intrusive or difficult to get around.
The music’s cute but the graphics are a bit cloying and not exactly works of art. The game rewards you for making as few moves as possible to solve the problem, but the controls are super sensitive, meaning you can be intending to move a piece slightly, and end up with four extra moves clocked up to your score.
The game progresses evenly, building up challenges and skills and definitely provides you with some frustrating moments as your brain tries to engage. The physics are billed as being very realistic and I’d say this is fairly true – objects teeter according to center of gravity shifts
An interesting offer with some average graphics and a weird story line, but a definite bonus for being free.
