They Need To Be Fed Review

Mobile indie developers seems to have caught on a simple formula to lure in the iPhone gaming masses: make a cute character as the protagonist, cook up some absurd story/situation, slap on a bit of a challenging gameplay, ????, and profit! Angry Birds has it, Cut The Rope has it, Doodle Jump has it, and heck even the lesser known Spider has it (yeah, sure it’s a spider, but it is a small one, only big spiders are scary. Haven’t you played any RPGs?).

And our game in focus today, They Need to Be Fed, has it too. It’s not a bad thing per se, though oversaturation must be addressed (like war FPSes on the bigger machines). But if it’s done right, we are fingers and thumbs up for it. YoYo Games’ gravity platformer certainly ‘gets’ it right, and has all the ingredients in correct proportion to make it an engaging play. But it doesn’t do one thing though, makes us go ‘awww’ – it has a cute little guy as the main character, but he must meet a fate that is just too saddening.

This brings me to my use of a (completely badass) quote from the legendary mouth of Duke Nukem as the excerpt. In They Need to Be Fed, you control a…little person (no puns) or a silhouetted avatar if you will, and must guide him through a series of gravitational jumps and hoops and straight into the belly of a hungry looking…monster or ‘they’ from the title. No matter what route you take, your ultimate aim is to…er, die. Funny if you look at this way: this is certainly a trial and error game (especially in the later parts), so you will try and die repeatedly only to make yourself killed again! It’s Cut the Rope turned over its head, and tortured. The darker, almost lonely feel of the game, makes me wonder if there is any symbolism present in the game, but let’s not get into that. It’s a mobile game, for God’s sake (no pun intended again).

The game is pretty simple to play, and is very much like the multi-billion dollar making Super Mario Galaxy. You guide this little guy from platform to platform, till you meet your maker. Each platform has its own gravitational pull, so you can circle around it entirely. When you jump, you will be sucked on to the next nearby platform, furthering the progress. Momentum matters as well – the faster you move, the farther you will be able to jump before gravity decides to be a b****. And you will need to keep that up as the platforms gets more and more dangerous. Some will carry spikes, exploding balls, and hey, it also got long range stuff like cannons shooting bullets.

During the level you must collect diamonds to unlock ‘worlds’. There are seven of them. Unlike Cut The Rope were collecting stars holds no obstacles to progressing in the game; in this game it is essential as each world has a perquisite for diamonds to gain entry. Each world brings new gameplay mechanics into play and get progressively harder.

If you manage to collect 99 diamonds, you’ll unlock each world’s ‘X Level’. These are easily the best part of the game as it quickens the pace and throws in further gameplay changes to the challenge. One level has you grow plants as you run over seeds, which brings much needed flare and color to the otherwise two-toned color palette.

The only complaint I have with this game is, and it is something most developers will just shrug at, is that the game is too damn short. There are 7 seven worlds, and within those worlds are 7 levels, and despite that, the game feels short; the levels get over too quickly if you know the trick of the trade. In fact, you will blitz through the first worlds within no time. It took me 15mins flat, and that includes feeling sad for the little tot I just killed.

They Need To Be Fed is an excellent game, and is right up with likes of the best. For $0.99, you can’t go terribly wrong with this one. Just don’t get too attached to your little person. *wink*