Part of the Indie Game Summer Uprising event, Cute Things Dying Violently certainly delivers upon its promise. As a pure form of puzzle game, this is one of those games that has a simple core and some fun little mechanics that make it look like it should be easy when it can really be quite challenging.
Tasked with the simple objective of saving the Cute Things in each level by slingshotting them into a waiting elevator, the game provides different challenges to prevent you from doing that, namely spinning saw blades and rows of spikes. Should your launch prove to be off in angle or power you can expect a bit of blood. And by a bit, I mean a lot.
Graphically, the game stay simple and doesn’t distract from the task at hand by filling the screen with unnecessary crap. The cartoony look works well and with the audio working with it, provides a very good feel. I have had times where I am dragging a Cute Thing around, trying to line it up and I hear it say “I have lots of ambitions” and it throws my aim off more than just a little bit. Little things like that and the pause menu text are what make this game truly endearing.
For accomplishing certain feats within the game, like saving all the Cute Things in Chapter 1 will unlock special levels that can be used to help improve your Cute Thing flinging skills or just to watch them die in horrible ways. In addition to the special levels, you can make your own levels with the level editor with all the fun bits you come to love in the single player game. If the game does well enough, the creator has said that he wants to make a level sharing hub for the game which would be pretty awesome.
Multiplayer pits two local players against each other in a race to save a set number of Cute Things or the most in a set amount of time. Fouling that up for your opponent and saving yours is the key to winning these titanic match ups of hilarious deaths. I invited two friends over to play the multiplayer on this and they went at it for hours trying to determine who was better at the game.
All in all, for 80 MSP this is a great buy that will entertain you a lot longer than you expect.
