Adventures of Shuggy

Adventures of Shuggy is a surprisingly addictive puzzle/platform game which is available on Xbox Live Marketplace.

After inheriting Castle Shug, Shuggy is unable to move in because of all the creepy nasties which haunt all of the rooms. In order to make Castle Shug habitable again, Shuggy, a very cute and purple cartoon bat, has the mammoth task of clearing each room of all the ghosts, ghouls and robots. To clear all of the nasties, you need to collect all the gems within the room but if you get touched by a nastie the room will reset and you have to start from the beginning. With each room you clear, another door opens within the castle which leads to another room within the five areas of the castle (the Dungeon, Gallery, Graveyard, Clocktower and Boiler Room) to explore

The controls are simple; you only use two buttons and the left control stick to move Shuggy. ‘A’ gets Shuggy to jump and the longer it’s pressed the higher you jump. RT allows you to use the pre-chosen action for that level.

Although the game may appear to be simple and repetitive and the controls painfully easy for any type of gamer to master, Adventures of Shuggy does have some hidden charms. These charms of an upbeat soundtrack and a cute purple bat then gently lead you to the extremely and frustrating levels which you expect from any good puzzle game.

You also get the chance to prove how good you are in the versus mode. There is the obligatory co-op and head to head mode and the additional challenge mode. In challenge mode the aim is to make a path to the edge of the board which is made up of hex tiles. Each tile represents a different level to complete. You also have a chance to steal your opponent’s tiles by finishing the level in a faster time.

On the surface, Adventures of Shuggy may appear simple and just a game that’s only suitable for kids. But as with many deceptively adorable looking games, as soon as I got through the first three or so levels I found myself getting ‘gaming rage’ as I sat there trying to figure out how to get the gems from those difficult places. If you’re looking for a good puzzle game which has the style of a platformer and don’t mind parting with 800 MS points then Adventures of Shuggy could just be for you.