Have you ever been called a 'Silly Sausage'?
Well, it's not a common saying but if you ever wanted to be, now you can thanks to Nitrome's "Silly Sausage" the free games (there seem to be two for now) for phones or tablets. You play as a goofy, doopy-looking, big eyed sausage dog that looked like it was cross breed with a pug, so the ugly cute. And your goal is to flick the dog across a number of different kinds of obstacle courses to collect green diamonds (which are helpful, not necessary but helpful) and end up safely at the next dog house which is a save point which will cost you the green diamonds (see, you don't have to spend them but every time you die you start from your last save point or the beginning).
The controls are touch pad where you slide your finger in the direction (left, right, up, at times down) you want your doggie to go. But your bark bark's feet stay in the same place until he grabs on to an edge (which stops the movement) and then the rest of his body follows to join him. This make his body stretch out and long and when he moves to a new spot on the course he sometimes lets out a few barks of delight. It is kinda like old-Nokia 'Snake' but if your bow-wow's head lands on his body it is not a game over since he just shakes his heads to let you know he can't go further. This same action also happens on the ice blue blocks that he cannot grab on.
The music is cute and has a 8 bit cartoony vibe to it as do the colorful and super adorable designs of the backgrounds, which have faces on them and the other characters that just wanna hurt you. Aren't they sweet. The sound effects are alright with a sound for every up and down movement, the shaking of the woof woof's head, and when the dog pup gets hit and pops but only after is goes back, and spins and show you his face of horror and pain. Guessing you may be a cat-lover if you like that look ;).
The game is easy to learn since it follows the basic of gaming language, aka spiked balls hurt. And you are able to understand everything on screen without a guide to hand hold you. I think there were times that I got stuck but I manage to figure it out with trail and error, and sometimes plain old planning my route before I made my fluffy fluff move. Easy game to play but tricky to get through. Each level is a build on from the previous and they all seem to be in on long line as if you are traveling through the land. And there are speed power-ups which can be useful to cross dangerous areas but the wrong one could make you land in a spike. There are also "villains"that hurt you like the electric jelly. Just a jelly that follows you. At times you have to use the characters (Jelly), objects (like bombs) to break a wall in order for you to get by without hurting yourself. Good thing there are not lives and the ads for this free game only come on every third time you die so it not to bad, I think.
So far there seems to be two games with this character: "Silly Sausage in Meat Land" and "Silly Sausage: Doggie Dessert". The latter has a bit more to offer since there are bonus stages where you just have to play an advert to get in (and then it is always open) and these are more trick to navigate since they usually have spiked balls which hurt your pup pup and send you back. There is a collection of dog toys that you can try get by passing these bonus stages, but I have not yet gotten anything. Oh, and it's timed... but I mostly suck.
The latter also seems to be more challenging than the former (for me at least) but it is a fun, creative, and tricky puzzle game to get your mind juices going with pleasing visuals that are not to mouth-watering to get yourself distracted.
I would give it a:
5/5- Visuals
4/5- Game-play, sometimes he does not listen or response quick enough but that could be my fingers and tablet
2/5- Story, there isn't really one
3 and half/5- Replay value, trickiness of the levels were beginning to annoy me but I still want to pass them.
But check it out since it is free and let this little tail wiggler delight your screen at the tip of your finger.
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