Keebles Review
Developer Burnt Fuse
Publisher Green Man Loaded
Platforms PC
Release Date Out Now
Reviewed By Claire Curtin
Keebles, on start up, looks innocent.
Keebles looks fun and engaging.
Keebles is colourful, bouncing with energy, and looks and sounds like a carnival.
This might be a nice, easy game to pass some time with, right?
Uh… No.
About 10 minutes in, when you’ve got the basics down, you’ll discover that Keebles has in fact turned your grey matter into mush. Don’t be fooled by those cute little fluffy critters and vibrant colours; if you are as much a perfectionist as I am, and want those 5 stars at the end of each level, they will make you WORK for those 5 stars, and then some.
Before you ever start flattening …I mean, saving Keebles (afore mentioned fluffy critters), you get a chance to survey the level, take into account where the Keebles are, as well as any pit falls and potential obstacles. After that, you may allow your inner mad engineer loose, and construct the amazing – if not haphazard – vehicles to save the day.
Being creative is the key. When building the vehicle, players are provided with a number of different parts, and because this is a physics-based puzzle game, you need to think about what you are putting in, and where. The Bobble (the round glass object to collect Keebles in) is the central component of your vehicles, while wheels and beams are common construction items across all the levels.
Each level has a different challenge to overcome, different terrains, obstacles and environments, and depending on how well (or poorly!) you do, scores are displayed in stars, five being the maximum. There is also a time challenge bonus, if you manage to complete the level in record time.
Don’t count on being able to get all 5 stars AND the record time challenges in one go, though. That’s what multiple replays are for! While your first vehicle might have been top notch for Keeble collecting, you may find that it’s a smidgen too slow to get that record time in, or vice versa.
Many times have I laughed at my own failures; whether it be puff-puffing down hills (yes, I looked at the hints! Here’s looking at you, developers!) and turning the bobble vehicle into a mangled wreck, or rocketing myself into the sky as a firework, that inevitable sound of the bobble breaking lets you know that your design needs just a little more work. Trial and error, my friends.
As a further challenge to players, in some levels you are only given the bare minimum to get through the level. Obviously, being able to successfully complete the level given the limited parts you had is a fantastic feeling. But introducing a player to a tool to use in one level, and taking it away in the next, while it may have the best intentions to get a player to think outside the box, felt a little bit like a candy snatch on the developers’ part.
Either that, or I have a very small fuse on my frustration levels.
That being said, having the ability to activate certain gadgets at opportune moments does a great job of keeping your eyes on the screen and actually concentrating on the game. Timing is everything, especially when deploying parachutes, balloons, rockets and the other various gadgets available.
Giving players the power to solve a problem their own way also adds a massive enrichment to playing games like Keebles. Players are only limited by their imagination, and given enough time spent playing this game and others like it, no doubt it could turn into a valuable asset in real life. Accompanied by some great jingles (I could listen to the intro track for hours!) as well as some simple but really lovely graphics, the game works really well as a whole, and has massive replay potential; although personally, I think I’m a glutton for punishment.
Hilarious, frustrating, but very engaging, Keebles can make the most demure of video game players competitive as hell. The game is quite good on PC; there are a few kinks needing to be worked out, but I get the unwavering notion that it could be even better with a mobile/tablet port, especially with the drag’n’drop functionality of building fantastic creations in the Workshop.
If you feel like a genius after one level, but throwing your keyboard/laptop out the window on the next, you’re playing it right.
SCORE 4/5
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