Flewfie’s Adventure describes itself as an ‘overwhelmingly cute side-scrolling shooter’ and it certainly lives up to that accolade. I’m normally somewhat wary of any game that describes itself in those sort of terms, but this actually ended up being a bit of a surprise.
In the game, you play as Flewfie, a cat that has a UFO and is using it to save the world. You’ll fly through each of the games levels, shooting enemies and collecting various objects. The shooting mechanics are pretty simple, the right analogue stick fires a steady stream of projectiles, and that’s about it. The difficulty in later levels comes from avoiding damage, and it can get pretty hectic as the game goes on.
In addition to defeating the enemies, each level will have a series of puzzles and collectables. The collectables in this game are pretty important, because they let you unlock better gear for your ship and character, which in turn gives you extra attack power and defence. This gear is in keeping with the games style, featuring various cutesy outfits for the main character, and different add-ons for the UFO. The puzzles range from simple things such as pressing a button, to solving mazes with various trap doors and such, and it does get quite fun to solve each one.
The graphical style could be said to be an acquired taste. I will say that as the game develops, it does become more interesting and intense, but some people will just not like it. For me, it gave me flashbacks to playing Neopets as a child. I don’t mind it though, the style is consistent throughout and you can tell a lot of effort has gone into it, there are lots of different enemy designs, some of them quite unique, and there is a good variety in the level design too. I think sometimes people look at this style of art and assume it’s simplistic, but that would be to give the game a discredit.
Finally, I really like the music. I think the composer has done a great job. I would say the musical style is ‘calm and breezy’, not overly bubbly or poppy as you might imagine from the games graphics. It fits the tone well and is just nice to listen too. Flewfie’s Adventure also features a card game called Fyued which you can play with various NPC’s. It’s not quite a Gwent level addition, but it’s nice to have.
I do have one or two nit-picks with Flewfie’s Adventure. The first is that when you get hit by enemy projectiles, there’s no real feedback that it’s happening, no flashing or momentarily invulnerability. This can make some boss battles a little tricky in that it can be difficult to tell when you are getting hit, and when you are clear of danger as the graphics can merge together a little bit.
The second issue, is just that for a game so focused on its style, it would be nice if it was possible to have customisability separate from upgrades, so that you can make your cat and UFO look how you like without having to worry about stats.
Ultimately, I think they’ve done a really good job with Flewfie’s Adventure. They’ve packed a lot into this game, a levelling system, puzzles, decent combat, great music, customisability and a minigame. It would have been easy for them to do the bare minimum, but they’ve really put a lot of effort into the title and it shows. The game is currently sitting at £7.40 on Steam, which is a price they are stating as being 35% off it’s retail. I would recommend the game at that price if you’re a fan of side-scrolling shooters with puzzle elements however if it goes back up to £11.39, that may be a little steep for what’s on offer.
You can purchase the game here.
