Bytten

Poor Momo. A lost little squirrel, he is found one day by a little girl. The two immediately became great friends, playing all summer long together. Then she was gone, taken away. Poor Momo... alone once more. With only the beads from her broken necklace to remember her, Momo decides to go after her and be reunited with his friend.

Thus begins a quest through forest, town, school, mines (?) and more. Follow the trail of beads, collecting all the purple beads on a level for extras such as desktop wallpaper. There are dangerous creatures and puzzles to solve, of course, and it is up to you whether you take the easier daytime path or the parallel, scarier dark path.

Momo's Quest is a platformer controlled in a slightly unusual way. The horizontal position of the mouse determines whether Momo walks or runs left or right, or stays still, and the left button makes him jump. Simple! The mouse cursor is symbolised by a nut - Momo basically follows the nut. Rather than plainly scroll left and right, the levels "rotate" into view - hence "Rotoadventure". Special pickups are sometimes available that grant Momo temporary powers (such as higher jumping or defeating enemies) but these are handled automatically.

Graphics are a 2D cartoon style, which lends the rotational aspect a weird touch on occasions (seeing impossibly thin trees and characters looming around the, er, corner occasionally broke the immersion) but are generally well done. Everything is big and bright, the collision detection is very generous with jumps and pickups and Momo conveys a lot of character. His different outfits on different levels are great! There has clearly been a lot of effort spent on making the game appeal to a young audience. Sound consists of a range of background tracks to fit the levels and a selection of suitable sound effects, though Momo's cries as he jumps can get a little repetitive (there appear to only be two!).

There's a fair amount of playability in Momo. The very simple controls could have been quite limiting but instead Momo can do a lot of things for himself. You can push blocks (and giant acorns!) around by simply walking into them, for instance, and a range of pickups (varying each level) allow Momo to jump higher or temporarily pacify enemies, but there's more to it than even that with a fairly flexible central game engine. The first world boss is a giant wormlike creature eating an entire tree, defeated by dropping giant acorns on its head!

As for longevity - Momo lacks a certain pull for me. Perhaps I'm just too old for the game to hook me, or perhaps there's an element of sameness to it all - your aim is always to get from one side of the level to the other, and the collection of beads along the way is a secondary objective. Collect all the beads on a level for bonuses, but this is not necessary to advance to the next and replaying a level to collect them all can be tedious.

There isn't anything bad about Momo. It's a good game for children to play with, containing no real violence and not difficult to play, though the use of mouse is a little unusual. I'm not sure if this makes it easier or harder for little ones to play! I certainly experienced no technical problems or obvious glitches while reviewing it, though the website could use a little proofreading.

Have a go with the demo first and see what the children make of it - they're the ones Momo is aimed at, not me, after all. It's a well assembled game, but just not my cup of tea.

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