Keebles Review

Keebles is a Physics based game where you get to create vehicles and solve puzzles, coming from the indie studio Burnt Fuse. Your main goal to save a race of Small Fur Balls called Keebles (Not Critters,The Evil Alien Race of Fur Balls, Bent on total world Annihilation and food). Design and construct your vehicle to traverse the terrain and complete the goal, the term trial and error is the key to winning.

Keebles cute and cuddly, they maybe, but are they more like a disease as they spread themselves across the world, in search of mushrooms, their main resource that is becoming rather rare.

The poor little critters lost in a very dangerous world.

Create your vehicle and take it out, will you be able to transport the lovably keebles to the end of the stage? You carry the keebles within an object called a Bobble, this houses and protects the little blighters from the elements that are put in your way during each stage, your vehicle must be able to successfully go from point A to point B, point B being the end of the stage, where a whale awaits you. That’s it really, but creating the correct vehicle for each stage is where the game shines through, or more or less does your bloody head in and sees you throwing the keyboard out of the nearest window.

Overall, there is a total of 30 stages to complete, with a new level of difficulty increasing as you progress through them. You will find the starting stages more or less like a tutorial, a way to slowly bring you in to a much harder game as it progresses. Each level will test your brain, do you add rockets? Steam? Loads and loads of wheels, or a parachute, the choice is not endless, as you are restricted to the amount of gadgets available, but it will make you think.

The Bobble that houses the keebles is like glass, very fragile, so always think about the best way to protect it, from a rough landing, fast jump or sharp objects, if that’s broken it’s game over.

Something I see in many games of late, more in mobile games like Angry Birds or Cut the Rope, they have a star/achievement system to show how well you have done. With Keebles you are timed, recourses you have used are monitored and the amount of Keebles collected, then everything is rounded up into a Star Rating. This kind of system allows for replayability to better yourself and beat your friends.

I found myself on many occasions re starting the game as I was not happy with the way I was progressing through the level, or I missed something along the way. The game does require your constant attention, as each world offers is own challenges, Activating the gadgets on time is a must, if timed wrong, failure is inevitable.

It’s a micro world, and we love it

Now lets have chat about the construction of vehicles, that garage uses a 2D design approach with a drag and drop system interface, that allows you to drag and drop gadgets onto a 2D workspace. The Bobble (Keeble housing) is the main body of your vehicle and everything is built around it, you get to choose from 4 different wheel types, 5 gadgets and everything is held together by glue (Not super glu, more like PVA). It’s very basic but it work well, this games interface would work fantastic on touchscreen devices, like mobile and tablets.

 

The design of each level is rather simplistic with simple yet creative art work, for a game like this, you cannot really expect much more. The music is uplifting and will find yourself humming along to the tunes even when not playing the game.

What i said before still stands, replayability is key to the success of this game and also another reason why I see this game doing well on the mobile platform. If you played games from the Candy Crush franchise or Cut the Rope Series you will easil, you know that each stage you complete is viewable on like a tree/ladder the same is showcased with Keebles, allowing you to view how we well you have done for each stage.With a total of 90 cute and adorable Keebles to collect, a star rating of 150 in total and the time challenge, there is plenty to aim for, and better yourself.

Keebles is a fun and addictive puzzle physics game, with adorable, cute Keebles, a basic design that works well for what it is, but it will test your brain as you progress through its stages. I see this game being a great Mobile game, with Microtransactions or in-game advertisement, as it’s a really easy game to pick up and play for a short amount of time, or  long periods.

The question is, will it do well on PC based on what you get, well maybe it will, maybe it won’t who can tell these days, with its current selling price of £6.99 on Greenman Gaming, it’s a short and sweet game. However I can not get this game out of my mind, and think it would be much better suit to mobile. Maybe an idea to look at if sales don’t do as well for PC?

Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.