Game Reviews

Puff review - A shooter and a survival test mixed into one

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iOS
| Puff
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Puff review - A shooter and a survival test mixed into one
|
iOS
| Puff

Puff is the latest game in a reasonably long-line of super simple, hardcore arcade games that sort of kicked off with Super Crate Box.

All the action takes place on one screen, and you've only got a couple of buttons to control the carnage that you're unleashing.

But there's a sprinkling of Flappy Bird in here as well. And while the game might not have the fizz and pop of SCB, it's still a pretty solid experience all the same.

Shoot to move

There are three buttons at your disposal here. One of them bounces you in the air, the other two shoot left and right. And when you shoot, you move in the opposite direction to your bullets.

Beneath you is a pool of liquid. This rises up as you play each level. Hit the water and you'll die. There are other obstacles as well.

Bubbles roll in from the sides of the screen, plants burst up from pipes and fire gouts of deadly poison at you. Killing these earns you points.

Once you've been on a level for long enough an exclamation mark flashes up. This signals that the roof is about to cave in. Spikes fall down and they'll take some of your health if they hit you. But an opening also appears, and getting through it moves you to the next challenge.

There are power-ups and buffs that'll help you chase your high score. Shields protect you from damage, bombs explode when you hit them and clear the screen, and hearts give you extra health.

You've got a health bar made up of four chunks. Getting hit by any of the creatures you're fighting will take one chunk. Getting hit by one of the streams that some of the pipes spew will kill you instantly.

Moved to shoot

And it all adds up to a pretty interesting blasting experience. There are problems though, the main one being a lack of progression.

You don't unlock anything new as you play, and so you're just left chasing your own score rather than the next new skill or stage.

That means the game loses its sparkle a lot quicker than it maybe should. Still, grabbing it won't cost you anything, and while that original spark lasts, you're going to have a lovely old time.

Puff review - A shooter and a survival test mixed into one

A clever mix of ideas that might lose its sparkle after a while, but is still worth spending some of your precious time on
Score
Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.