Let's Talk... Cloudberry Kingdom

If you thought Cloudberry Kingdom was going to be anywhere near as cute as it sounds then you were sadly mistaken. This game is evil and desperately wants to kill. Although it sounds like something from an Animal Crossing game, Cloudberry Kingdom is a torture platformer with a huge emphasis on the torture aspect. Fans of Super Meat Boy will likely be attracted to the game's punishing madness, but may also be put off by the game's much slower pace. The premise to Cloudberry Kingdom's madness is that you are Bob, the generic determined hero, and you must rescue the generic helpless princess from the generic evil bad guy. Sounds simple, right? You couldn't be more wrong.

Cutscenes have a cool paper-craft aesthetic 

The story opens with an excellent paper-craft cutscene that immediately sets the tone of the game with its bad puns and clichéd adventure set-up. Outside of the story, your general aim in Cloudberry Kingdom is simply to get past the endless spinning maces, spiky death traps, and that bastard gravity to reach the end of the level. What makes Cloudberry Kingdom unique, however, is that every level is randomly generated. As you'd imagine, this adds a huge replay value and certainly spices up the gameplay, but makes the level design feel pretty weak and you don't get the feeling that each level was meticulously crafted as you do with Super Meat Boy, or any other platformer for that matter. However, it's what's in the level and trying to kill you that matters in this game.

For the most part the controls feel pretty tight and the platforming is pretty solid. As you progress through the game, you'll be unlock varying abilities that change the way Bob behaves. Ranging from Tiny Bob to Jetman (Bob flies around on a jetpack of course, what else?) these abilities keep the gameplay from getting stale too quickly and every level is designed around your current ability. Most of these abilities tweak the gameplay in pretty minor ways (for example, you're smaller or can jump twice) but they do a great job of keeping the gameplay fun and engaging enough to keep playing. The story mode has a nice steady difficulty curve at the beginning as the levels introduce new features and you unlock new abilities, but then the game just sort of reaches a point of utter madness and every level is just packed full of insane stuff trying to kill you. This insane difficulty may put off players who are new to difficult platforming, but seasoned platforming veterans may really enjoy the madness.

One of the more crazier levels.

Cloudberry Kingdom is quite colourful but is mostly pretty darn ugly. There are a handful of very basic backgrounds that the game cycles through, enemies and traps look really simple, and Bob looks incredibly bland. Visuals aren't exactly a strong point, but the soundtrack is great and almost as crazy as some of the levels. Cloudberry Kingdom recognises its competitive nature with its fun co-op mode and global leaderboards, which the more competitive players may appreciate. Co-op mode is a great time sink that allows you to tweak the difficulty and the ability that everyone shares. Along with story mode and co-op, there's an arcade mode where players can strive for high scores or attempt time trials and a free-play mode, where players can create their own crazy levels to punish their friends or get some much needed training for the madness of story mode.

Overall, Cloudberry Kingdom is a well-executed torture platformer that may attract players who enjoy the more difficult side of platforming that is matched only by Super Meat Boy. It doesn't quite live up to the height of its competition but its well worth the $10 price tag if you're looking for a new platformer to punish you.

Strengths:
       -Solid platforming with tight controls
       -Procedurally generated levels add huge replay value
       -Variety of power-ups and abilities keep gameplay fresh
       -Great soundtrack that adds to the madness
       -Global leaderboards and co-op add a nice competitive element
       -The game can be super rewarding at times

Weaknesses:
       -Ugly visuals
       -Doesn't have the fast pace that makes SMB feel awesome to play
       -Can be super punishing at times