Bytten

This week's review concerns round creatures with tiny arms and legs, big eyes and a great deal of momentum. Many of them are blue, but some are red or even green. I am mystified as to the plot behind this game yet, like so many game plots, I scarcely think it matters (or that many people bother to read them). On with the game!

Funny Creatures is a puzzle game in keeping with the format of similar puzzlers such as Rotadim or Stone Collector. Select a creature by clicking on it with the mouse, then click roughly in the direction you want it to go. Get all the creatures onto the corresponding markers to complete the puzzle. The usual catch applies - once they move, they won't stop until they hit a wall or another creature.

Graphically, Funny Creatures is okay - but there is nothing exceptional. The creatures themselves look more bizarre than cute (which appears to be the intention) and the colours seem remarkably invariant - I have seen red, dark blue and light blue creatures. Later on there are green ones. Why not yellow, purple, brown, black or white creatures? The backgrounds vary nicely though, and the creatures always stand out.

The music is described as "beautiful" by the game website. It is a pleasant little ditty. It is also never-ending. I started playing on mute after a few games. It's not a bad tune, just repetitive. Funny Creatures would benefit from a range of background music.

I have to admit that this is one of the easiest games to operate that Bytten has reviewed. Controls are through mouse or keyboard. Less experienced mouse users will probably find the keyboard a better bet, for when clicking on creatures it is easy to miss and send your current creature zipping along the board (which can ruin your hard work as there is no undo feature!). The move counter ticks upwards, not down, so you can solve a puzzle in eight moves or eight hundred moves as far as the game is concerned.

Funny Creatures doesn't have many obvious flaws to it, though it shares one with the earlier version of Rotadim. If you attempt to move a creature in a direction it cannot go, nothing will happen to the creature; however, your move counter will go up. Thankfully (unlike Rotadim) there are no move restrictions - indeed, no restrictions at all. This is ideal for children, perhaps, but the lack of restriction meant I found little purpose in forward planning.

Overall, this is a nice game and an excellent early effort by Astatix, but lacks the depth found in similar games by more experienced developers.

Keywords: funny creatures review, astatix software reviews, astatix software games, funny creatures scores, pc game reviews, indie game reviews, independent gaming.