Game: Piffle
Genre: Adventure, Puzzle, Arcade
System: Nintendo Switch (also on Google Play, App Store, and Amazon Appstore)
Developer | Publisher: Mighty Games | Hipster Whale
Age Rating: US E | EU 3+
Price: US $19.95 | UK £15.99 | EU €16,99
Release Date: September 2, 2020
Review code used with many thanks to Hipster Whale!
Block Breaking Cats
What makes everything better? Cats, of course! Piffle is no exception. Piffle is a puzzle game where you shoot and bounce cats to get rid of the required blocks on each level.
Each block has a number on it, which shows how many times you have to hit the block with a Piffle before it will break and disappear. Each block acts differently when hit the required number of times. Some just disappear, some drop pineapples, some explode and destroy the blocks around it, and some don’t completely disappear they just turn into other blocks. Each time you shoot the Piffles, it counts as a turn and after each turn the blocks all drop down a level. If the blocks drop too far and you do not destroy them, they will squish you.
Change of Scenery
The game is constantly changing as you playing. There are different areas as you move through the main game, including various forests, beaches, mountains, and cities. The backgrounds change through each sections and the graphics are all super cute.
When you get bored playing through the main levels, as you go along there are also event islands that you are able to play. At the end of the event island I made it through, the last level featured a boss ‘fight’ where as you are clearing blocks, the boss gets angry and changes blocks and adds even more blocks to get through. It was a nice change from the regular levels and was a lot of fun!
Customization and Store
Piffle allows for the player to find new patterns for special Piffles to be created and used in game play. Once you find a new pattern, you then need the supplies to make that Piffle which you can earn through chests or buy through the store (more on the store in a bit!). Currently, I am using pirate Piffles because… well they are adorable.
Each level you beat gives you a number of coins. These can then be used in the Piffle store to buy materials for Piffle patterns or power ups to help you beat tricky levels. It is nice to have an in-game currency that you can earn to make purchases, which is a huge selling point in my book. If I am going to buy a game with real money, I do not want to continue to purchase things in the game with more real money.
Overall Thoughts
I really was not expecting to like Piffles as much as I did. I thought it would be a cute puzzle game that I would fly through and get bored of quickly. This is a quite long lasting game that I look forward to playing! None of the levels are so impossibly difficult that I get discouraged by not being able to beat it but I can’t always beat a level on the first try either so it is a really good mix of difficulty that keeps me entertained.
There are 226 levels (not including event islands) so this game is sure to keep you occupied for a quite a while. There is also even a DLC you can purchase for even more levels once you have gotten through the original game. The only drawback that I have with the game is that there is some sort of story that occurs throughout the game but not enough attention is paid to it for me to actually understand what is going on and why. As a cute puzzle game, though, you really cannot find a better one to play!
Final Verdict: I Like it a Lot
