DIG THAT: THE ADVENTURES OF SHUGGY

PLATFORMS | XBOX LIVE ARCADE, PC
DEVELOPER/PUBLISHER | SMUDGED CAT GAMES
RELEASE DATE | 6.13.12

The Adventures of Shuggy plays a lot like an old-school Nintendo game, but at the same time, it doesn’t. It encompasses many of the traits that define games like Super Mario Bros., but it’s not an exact clone, and that’s how it calls attention to itself.

This 2-D puzzle platformer follows the little vampire Shuggy (yeah I don’t know either), as he inherits a possessed mansion from his grandfather.

The goal of the game is to collect keys in a variety of levels in order to evict the evil tenants. This seems painfully simple, but you have to remember that this is a platformer, and it’ll be painful in the worst way.

The game seems to suffer from a bad case of ADHD, as each level is almost like a separate game. There are some that play with time, some that allow you to rotate the level, some that focus on good timing, some that require friends, and some that combine them for very hectic, but varied and interesting gameplay that keeps you engaged for long periods of time.

This chaos can get in the way though, since Shuggy throws a lot at you at once. You have to be able to switch from mechanic to mechanic as you go with no breaks. Combining this with very loose controls (I spent about five minutes jumping into a ceiling trying to get onto another platform), it can make for a frustrating experience.

For those that are looking for a challenging platformer, you can’t do much better than The Adventures of Shuggy, but if you can’t handle that frustration, you might want to try something easier--anything that isn’t a platformer, really.