Review: Pudding Monsters

By the same company that made Cut the Rope, Pudding Monsters is a free puzzle game that is available for iPhone and Android.

See if you can guess what all
these elements do.

Pudding Monsters in terms of controls is very similar to the Amiga game Atomix, although it’s nowhere near as difficult. In both games you can select any piece to move in any direction. They will then keep moving until they hit something. In Atomix, the pieces were atoms, which needed to be placed with the other atoms in a certain position to create a molecule. In Pudding Monsters this is simplified, as the monsters bind together. The goal is simply to connect every monster.

Now if you’ve ever played Atomix I can hear you thinking “but this sounds too easy!” Thankfully there are stars. As soon as you have completely connected the monster the level ends. The stars are placed on tiles on the floor, you need to finish the level with the monster covering all the stars to achieve three stars. To get the stars you will need to connect the monsters in particular shapes.

Also there are a vast number of elements which affect the game. The game as a result never reaches the beautiful simplicity of Atomix, but it does keep people from getting board. The separate elements do genuinely affect the game differently and have been well thought out. I think so long as you’re resolved to introducing all these elements however it would have been nice to see them all working together. As it is you get an almost unique set of elements for each of the four (as of writing this) worlds. This is nice in it’s own way, but I still would have liked to see some levels which used both slime monsters and magnet monsters, for example.

Now my Puddings are massive
and smashing into buildings!
Raugh!

For most of the game, the only goal seems to be to get three star solutions to each puzzle. However, part the way through you unlock “Crown Mode”. This asks you to complete the levels achieving every number of stars. On occasion getting all the other numbers of stars is easier that getting three stars. Normally it’s quite a bit harder. This is because although the levels were designed by hand they have had a computer solve the levels in every possible manner.

Computer designed levels can be what separates a good puzzle game from a bad one, but in this case the aid of a computer has done nothing but help. This is because there was still a human hand in the design decisions. Also to a degree you have to appreciate the difficulty gone to, to create the program for such little reward.

That about sums up everything of substance. The graphics and music are very well done, as you would expect from a large company. The only thing I’ll say is that the monsters between levels talk in this jabbering nonsensical manner which is actually rather annoying. Other than that it is an excellent game that’s not too hard and is well worth your time playing.