Two Fedoras

Pixel! is the latest installment in the series of games created by indie game developer  Arkedo Studio, who’s past titles include Jump!, Swap!, Big Bang Mini, and Nervous Brickdown. This time around they take on the challenge of shedding some light on why cats nap all the time. Here’s a hint, it’s because they are mad platforming fools.

Gameplay

The gameplay element of Pixel! is very straightforward. You play the roll of a cat who goes out for the night, in your typical cat way, and has an epic adventure. It is a traditional platformer in every sense of the word, progressing through the game by jumping on or roaring at enemies and make progressively more precarious leaps of faith as you venture through the six stages. Within each stage are numerous signs that give you helpful hints and humerus captions.

Another major element of gameplay that is used as a progression element, are small puzzle squares. Once inspector mode is activated by pulling the left trigger, you direct the giant magnifying glass over boxes of interest and enter into a puzzle mini-game of sorts. The rewards of completion vary from health restoration to mechanisms that aid in your completion of stages.

In all the gameplay feels fine. The progression of difficulty is a bit of a roller coaster. The first couple stages are pretty easy. Once you get to the Sky stage, things start to get much more complicated. One of the elements in particular that felt like it took too many failed attempts was the areas that involved leaping from ladder to ladder. I don’t even want to talk about how many times I have listened to the death musical bit. Fortunately there are infinite lives and benefits from very intelligently placed check points.

Audeo Visual

The visuals are a stylized two tone pixel art that is rather charming and works well for this particular game. Though to be fair, I have no idea what half of the monsters actually were that I was jumping on. That all being said it works, and doesn’t detract from the gameplay in any way.

Audio seemed pretty good, it was high quality and matched the stylized pixel feel of the game. As previously mentioned I could do without hearing the death tune ever again, but I suspect that is my fault for sucking.

Summary

Pixel! is available now on the XBox Indie Marketplace priced by top voodoo economists at 240 Tricky Dick Fun Bills. The game is well worth its $3 price tag, however I think there are some better values out there in Miner Dig Deep and I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1 which both clock in at a third of the price.