Crunch. Munch. Barf. Win!
Critter Crunch is the prettiest version of digital puke you'll ever see on your TV. Oh, and it's a pretty rad little puzzler too.
Published: February 3, 2010
In the great Venn-diagram of life, the area for "Things which will make a PS3 owner froth at the mouth in anticipation" is not particularly well known for intersecting with the area marked "iPhone ports". These abstract concepts can generally be observed squatting at opposite ends of the room, glaring at each other and muttering unflattering things about their respective mothers; the very idea of using the terrifying power of the PlayStation 3 to run a barely-upgraded version of Crystal Defenders is enough to make a grown man weep.
Luckily clouds can occasionally have silver linings, just as long as you know where to look. For every Twilight, there’s a Dracula; for every Rob Liefeld, there’s a Carlos Ezquerra. If Crystal Chronicles is The Dark Knight Strikes Again, then Critter Crunch is The Dark Knight Returns. Honest. If I lost you when I started talking about comic books [and I won't blame you for it], let me be clear: Critter Crunch is an iPhone port - but you'd never be able to tell.
Rather than go for an easy or even throwaway effort, the team at Capybara have poured heart and soul into making this game as polished an experience as possible. The lovingly rendered 1080p art is like the Studio Ghibli film that never was. Every screen oozes charm and detail; from the loading page which features the central character running on the spot to the friendly octopus which pops up on the main map to say "hello", tiny details abound. The animation is incredibly smooth and each scene features plenty of little background touches guaranteed to soften the heart of even the most hardened first-person shootist. The colours are bright, the music is jolly and the horrified faces that the little creatures make when their neighbours explode never fail to delight.
You see, underneath the beautiful animation, the heart-melting characters and the jovial cut-scenes lies a fiendish puzzle game in which the player controls a 'Biggs'; a great, fat, grinning ball of fuzz which uses its tongue to feed adorable forest creatures to other, equally adorable, beasties until they explode. Naturally, once they explode, they drop gems. When eaten, the gems award points and fill Biggs' 'hunger bar' which, once filled, completes the level. The relentless feeding and point collecting cycle is only broken by the appearance of Biggs' son (who arrives once a combo of a certain size has been reached). This little chap can be fed by means of a brightly-coloured stream of rainbow-vomit for bonus points, but at the risk of the player being overwhelmed by the ever-dropping columns of beasties. If this paragraph doesn't make you want to stop reading right now and buy the damned thing, I don't think that we can be friends anymore.
The creatures are arranged in columns which gradually descend. Biggs moves beneath them, grabbing them with his tongue and spitting them back out to rearrange and to feed. When you start your adventure you are presented with only three types of creatures: small, medium and large. The large ones eat the medium ones and the medium ones eat the small ones, which are very much at the bottom of this gorgeous and cruel food chain. The medium and the large beasties come in two colours and an exploding creature will set off adjacent creatures of the same colour. Difficulty initially varies through either an increase in the rate at which the columns drop or a reduction in the number of columns available. Once a creature falls beyond the bottom line it's all over and Biggs is set upon by the beasties in an adorable flurry of dust, noise and the mildly alarming flailing of limbs. The three-column game presents a particular challenge at this stage; tactics which work with a screen full of columns just won't cut it when you only have a limited number to play with.
Luckily clouds can occasionally have silver linings, just as long as you know where to look. For every Twilight, there’s a Dracula; for every Rob Liefeld, there’s a Carlos Ezquerra. If Crystal Chronicles is The Dark Knight Strikes Again, then Critter Crunch is The Dark Knight Returns. Honest. If I lost you when I started talking about comic books [and I won't blame you for it], let me be clear: Critter Crunch is an iPhone port - but you'd never be able to tell.
Rather than go for an easy or even throwaway effort, the team at Capybara have poured heart and soul into making this game as polished an experience as possible. The lovingly rendered 1080p art is like the Studio Ghibli film that never was. Every screen oozes charm and detail; from the loading page which features the central character running on the spot to the friendly octopus which pops up on the main map to say "hello", tiny details abound. The animation is incredibly smooth and each scene features plenty of little background touches guaranteed to soften the heart of even the most hardened first-person shootist. The colours are bright, the music is jolly and the horrified faces that the little creatures make when their neighbours explode never fail to delight.
You see, underneath the beautiful animation, the heart-melting characters and the jovial cut-scenes lies a fiendish puzzle game in which the player controls a 'Biggs'; a great, fat, grinning ball of fuzz which uses its tongue to feed adorable forest creatures to other, equally adorable, beasties until they explode. Naturally, once they explode, they drop gems. When eaten, the gems award points and fill Biggs' 'hunger bar' which, once filled, completes the level. The relentless feeding and point collecting cycle is only broken by the appearance of Biggs' son (who arrives once a combo of a certain size has been reached). This little chap can be fed by means of a brightly-coloured stream of rainbow-vomit for bonus points, but at the risk of the player being overwhelmed by the ever-dropping columns of beasties. If this paragraph doesn't make you want to stop reading right now and buy the damned thing, I don't think that we can be friends anymore.
The creatures are arranged in columns which gradually descend. Biggs moves beneath them, grabbing them with his tongue and spitting them back out to rearrange and to feed. When you start your adventure you are presented with only three types of creatures: small, medium and large. The large ones eat the medium ones and the medium ones eat the small ones, which are very much at the bottom of this gorgeous and cruel food chain. The medium and the large beasties come in two colours and an exploding creature will set off adjacent creatures of the same colour. Difficulty initially varies through either an increase in the rate at which the columns drop or a reduction in the number of columns available. Once a creature falls beyond the bottom line it's all over and Biggs is set upon by the beasties in an adorable flurry of dust, noise and the mildly alarming flailing of limbs. The three-column game presents a particular challenge at this stage; tactics which work with a screen full of columns just won't cut it when you only have a limited number to play with.
