DodoGo!
|
DSi
| DodoGo!

Scientists suggest that humans are to blame for the extinction of the flightless dodo.

By introducing new species of animal into the dodos' habitat and over-hunting them, the human race alone can be held accountable for the loss of this peculiar creature.

Sorry, science types, but you're all well off the mark. Here at Pocket Gamer, we know the truth – because we've played DodoGo!, the egg-rolling puzzler for DSiWare.

The death of the dodos had nothing to do with us. It was the lengthy, drawn-out tutorials that killed them off.

Still, at least they got to enjoy a few good puzzles before they were sent on their way.

Plenty to dodo

DodoGo! tasks the player with rolling dodo eggs past numerous obstacles and into the nest at the end of the level.

Swiping the eggs gets them rolling, but leave them to fend for themselves and they'll come a cropper, sinking in quicksand, getting eaten by snakes, and falling from great heights amongst other torturous deaths.

The action can be paused at any time and special items placed down to help the eggs reach their goal. Building bridges, setting up springs, and burning down wooden walls clears the path for your eggy friends.

It's a fairly fun and simple concept to grasp, and indeed the gameplay is relatively easy, only becoming a tad challenging towards the end.

So quite why developer Neko Entertainment felt the need to include more than a dozen overly-tedious tutorial levels is beyond us.

Scattered throughout a good portion of the game, drawn-out explanation levels show each item and idea off one by one.

It all definitely needs mentioning, but in a more compact and speedy manner would have been appreciated.

Give me Mauritius

The puzzles are a mixed bag, starting off weak but eventually finding their feet. However, the game never really gets challenging.

Golden eggs are awarded for perfect completion of levels, and by the end of the game I had bagged myself a golden egg on the majority of levels, simply from my first play through.

Even then, going back and getting top marks on past levels is a doddle. Once you know the solution to a level, it's pretty difficult not to do a perfect run.

Besides helping the eggs to the exit, you can also zoom in on an egg and give it a bit of tender care. Stroking an angry egg will make it happy, allowing it to move faster. Broken eggs must also be plastered up before they can continue on their way.

It's cute, but completely throw-away. After the first world, I barely ever tended to my eggs, and still managed to achieve high scores.

Egg-o-matic

Apart from the main levels, there are several bonus Robo-Egg puzzles which differ slightly from the main action.

A number of tokens are set out in a specific path, and your task is to pave the way for the Robo-Egg to collect them all, then hit the 'play' button and hope he makes it. If he comes a cropper, you can then go back and edit your original path until he finally makes it.

These bonus levels are by far the most enjoyable element of the game, and it's a wonder Neko didn't include more of them.

For the speed demons out there, the game supplies you with your own unique World Ranking code, which can be inputted into the DodoGo! website to rank you against the rest of the planet.

So DodoGo! is good puzzling fun in small doses but takes far too long to get going. If you can put up with initial slow pace, there's plenty to appreciate.

(And next week on Pocket Gamer: We discover what really happened to the dinosaurs.)

DodoGo!

DodoGo! is a solid and fun puzzler which suffers from a weak tutorial system
Score
Mike Rose
Mike Rose
An expert in the indie games scene, Mike comes to Pocket Gamer as our handheld gaming correspondent. He is the author of 250 Indie Games You Must Play.