Blow & Fly is the latest puzzle game from the folks at eastasiasoft. You take on the role of a blowfish who has been let out of the aquarium and is on a quest to return to the sea. This is a physics-based puzzler that requires you to move and aim the blowfish through levels littered with obstacles in an effort to reach the toilet at the end of the stage.
By rolling and aiming, the fish can propel itself through one of seventy levels. Helping our little round guy out are various springs which launch you through the air, as well as gravity pads that give an extra squirt. This is wrapped up in a neat visual little package; the pufferfish is suitably cartoony in appearance and fits in with the environments. It’s rather simplistic and is nothing that will blow your mind, but it is a charming game.
The downside comes in the form of the control setup. Trying to aim while on the move is never going to be easy, especially when you have to avoid spikes and other nasty obstacles. Pinpoint accuracy is required, but often the fish would slip just a little, and it was enough to throw me into a spike. When I thought I got the hang of how far away to land the fish, the game would tighten u,p and my jump would be too short. Thankfully, restarts are quick, but having an inconsistent control scheme is rather annoying.
The biggest flaw with Blow & Fly comes in the form of trophy hunting. Much like our review of Rift Racoon, eastasiasoft have decided to load all of the trophies within the first few levels once again. Once these have been collected, for some players, there is no further incentive to carry on with the game. I understand there are two types of people who will buy the game: those who love trophy hunting and those looking for a new puzzle game. But drip-feeding out the achievements and trophies would have been a nice incentive to push more people to experience the rest of the game, especially as it gets a lot tougher.
Blow & Fly has a straightforward premise and an art style that is surprisingly nice to look at. Some of the later levels can get frustratingly tough as pinpoint precision is needed ,and it’s a shame that all of the game’s achievements are front-loaded, as offering an incentive to stick with Blow & Fly a little longer would give it a little more credibility.