Aesop Spotlight: Boogey Boy

Goon Studio's in-progress demo, Boogey Boy, is a side scrolling platform game in a child dream universe.

Selecting one of the two available Story worlds, my character is perpetually escaping an epic shadowy monster and evading smaller monsters and vehicles while seeking out stars and power-ups.

The interaction with the world is jumping and double jumping, with the best strategy for along life being to find floating platforms to hop between, staying above the reach of most of the dream baddies.

What I Liked

The artwork and theme is a lot of fun. I really enjoyed hopping on and over Unicorns, Frogs, and angry Trucks; the obvious motivation of the ever chasing boogey monster; and the vivid story book backgrounds my side scrolling adventure propelled me through.

I managed to get the hang of the controls after only a few deaths, and after not much time was pulling off a few fun lucky long play runs.

What Still Needs Work

The main menu has three listings, but only one ("Story") seems to work. It would have been nice to be able to change volume or exit from within the menu. The "Options" and "Arcade" options existing but not being accessible makes me wonder whether they are 'coming soon' features, or just broken in my client.

It also would have been nice to be able to pull up the control instructions, as they only flash up briefly when game play starts. The in-game instructions use 'tap' as they expect most player will be on a mobile device, but the first several times I was trying to quick read the instructions I thought it said 'tab', which was not super helpful :P

I never actually managed to read through the in-game instructions until I grabbed a screenshot of it. To make sure I had figured out the controls sufficiently, I ended up reading through the instructions on indiedb. Not a big deal as the game is a snap to figure out in just a few 'lives', but it would have been nice to have this information more easily available :)

Conclusion

Overall, I was impressed with how inviting this in-progress platformer managed to be. The imagery is engaging, and the gameplay is challenging without being overwhelming.

I look forward to see future developments of Boogey Boy from Goon Studios in future!

[Check it out yourself on indiedb]