The Adventures Of Shuggy review (XBLA)

Formats: Xbox 360
Format reviewed: Xbox 360
Publisher: Smudged Cat Games
Developer: Smudged Cat Games
Made2Game The Adventures Of Shuggy review score: 8/10

The Adventures of Shuggy is seriously 'old school'. A lot of games claim to be, simply by inserting some archaic form of level design or coin-collection system, but developer Smudged Cat’s time-munching platformer is the real deal. Created using Microsoft’s XNA development environment, The Adventures of Shuggy has as simple a premise as you could hope for in an XBLA title.

Cool for (vampire) Cats
The Adventures Of Shuggy centres on the titular Shuggy, a little purple vampire cat… thing... who has inherited a huge Scottish mansion and must clear out all the ghouls, goblins, ghosts and zombies that have moved in. The plot details extend no further than this, but thankfully they don’t need to. All you really need to know is that A makes Shuggy jump, and RT activates the special effect of whichever room you’re in.

Each level is a single screen containing anything from lava pits and spike racks to patrolling goblins and scuttling rats. The idea is to collect all the shiny gems in the level in order to progress and unlock other rooms. Some will require you to rotate the entire room to bring the gems to Shuggy, others might require you to work with a little partner (equally unexplained) to activate ‘hold’ switches and navigate traps. Other levels have a timer that runs down before creating a ghost copy of your previous movements, requiring a good deal of forward thinking to nab the gems. My personal favourites are the Schmu levels, where you have to send cute little sticky balls of orange goop pinging around the room to unlock the gems.

There are over 100 rooms spread across five areas, including a boiler room and a graveyard, and every level is unique, meaning The Adventures Of Shuggy is rarely tedious and you genuinely have no idea what to expect from one level to the next. At between 7 and 9 hours from start to finish, some might say that The Adventures of Shuggy is a little overlong for a game of this type, but it manages to remain charming throughout.

Puss in Cahoots
If you do get a bit bored of The Adventures Of Shuggy’s solo mode, the multiplayer is wonderfully well-implemented and really brings the puzzle element into its own. Working together with a friend (or a stranger, if you like) is a lot of fun, and some of the multiplayer levels are incredibly challenging. The head-to-head stuff is brilliant, too, and will raise as many laughs as swears over Xbox Live.

The 2D graphical style evokes memories of childhood games like A New Zealand Story and Ghouls and Ghosts, while the sound effects and music add to the relentless charm perfectly. Overall, The Adventures of Shuggy is an addictive, refreshing slice of platforming fun where a quick five minutes is never enough. If you intend to buy just one game this year featuring an inch-high purple vampire cat in a haunted mansion, then it should be The Adventures Of Shuggy. Unashamedly quirky, fun and compelling, you won’t find many better platformers for 800 MS points.

Words: Mick Fraser

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