I’ve been out of the PC-indie scene for a long time now, so I miss hearing of some sleeper hits on Steam, such as Pig Eat Ball. The press release I received about it mentioned arcade action and getting fat from eating balls. It sounded too wacky and Pac-Man-esque for me not to give this one a try. Oh it’s crazy wacky, which is amazing, but it’s crazy fun too. Even when I get overly frustrated with a level, I never feel like a level is impossible. I just haven’t figured out its secrets yet.
There Is a Point With the Puzzles But…
Have you seen Disney’s Brave
Unsurprisingly, the princess does not want to get married, so she vows to entire the competition herself to win her own freedom. But how do the Cake Guards and her father not recognize her? She puts on glasses, of course! It worked for Clark Kent, it can work for a princess pig thing trying to avoid marriage.
In reality, the story doesn’t mean much. Not even the sub-plot you uncover after clearing stations matters in the end. It’s there as a reason for players to pilot a piggie through these puzzles to meet the challenges. While each substation has its own quirks and tricks, all of the puzzles boil down to one simple thing: Princess Bow has to suck up objects to win. And I mean literally suck up.
Ninety percent of the time, Princess Bow has to suck up a number of tennis balls. As she sucks up the balls, she gets fatter. If she can’t squeeze through a doorway, she has to barf up the balls to lose the weight. That’s right kids, this is one time when bulimia is acceptable: when you’re solving weird puzzles to get out of marriage.
Naturally, it’s not that straight forward or simple. Spiky balls float around too, and if she sucks one of them up, it will make her sick and barf. Whenever she gets hurt at all, from enemies or spikes or a dozen other random obstacles, she will get sick and barf. If you suck up the barf balls before they bounce themselves clean, she will get sick and barf. When you’re under a time limit to collect all of the balls, you DO NOT want to get hurt at all.
In addition, if you need to get enemies to stop doing their thing, barfing on them does the trick. I would think that would work on anyone, even in reality.
Barfing Good Fun
As is typical with these puzzle games, the puzzles start off relatively simple and then progressively compound the difficulty as you continue. The puzzles sometimes seem impossible, but there’s always a trick to getting through it. Sometimes that trick is particular path or order to follow, and other times it all comes down to the disguise Princess Bow wears.
She starts off with glasses, but by exploring the substation and fulfilling random sidequests, the princess can acquire new disguises. All of the disguises have a benefit and a detriment. One disguise will pump up the speed, but it greatly reduces the suction distance. Another strengthens and lengthens the suction, but Princess Bow will get sick more easily. Most of the time, if a puzzle is too challenging and frustrating, all it takes is picking the right disguise.
Sometimes kicking off the level with a power-up helps as well. Some levels have power-ups within, briefly granting abilities of slowing down time, attracting all of the balls, or health shields. Some power-ups can be found exploring the substations and storing them for later. When you start a challenge, that is an opportunity to change Bow’s disguise as well as starting with a power-up. Some of these power-ups have really gotten me out of a tight pinch, especially for the timed challenges. You all know how much I love timed challenges.
It’s because all of the challenges never feel impossible that I easily fell under the sway of, “Going to try one more time,” for hours on end. Once I did try and succeed, then it became “Just one more level,” hence the hours on end.
It’s not the deepest game as far as story goes, but you’ll be having so much fun solving the puzzles, it won’t matter. It’s a great pick-up-and-play game for the Switch that has gotten me to put down my iPhone for gaming. The portability of the Switch just makes it even easier.
Pig Eat Ball review code for Switch received via developer.
Pig Eat Ball
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