Game: Pudding Monsters
Genre: Puzzle
System: Nintendo Switch (also on iOS & Android)
Developers | Publishers: Zeptolab | QubicGames
Age Rating: US E | UK 3+
Price: US $4.99 | UK £ 4.99 | EU € 4,99
Release Date: February 25th, 2022
Review code used, with many thanks to Qubic Games.
Pudding Monsters was originally a mobile game developed by Zeptolab, the developers who brought us Cut the Rope on mobile. Pudding Monsters is a puzzle game, and it has now been ported to the Nintendo Switch.
Monsters made of Jelly
The Pudding Monsters are on a mission to save their friends from the cold-hearted fridge owner. But, first, you must help them escape by sliding the monsters together to make a mega-monster and help them make a run for it.
Each level opens with a handful of pre-placed little pudding monsters, think jelly monsters, and you won’t be far off. Swiping a monster up, down left or right sends it flying in that direction, and it’ll keep going until it hits another pudding monster or another object on the stage. The goal of each level is to swipe your collection of pudding monsters until they’ve all clumped together, forming one big super monster.
Swipe Left and Right
Once you’ve set a direction, the pudding monster will keep moving until it’s stopped by something in the environment. If you miss it, then the pudding monster will meet a sticky ending, and the remaining blobs will briefly mourn its passing, which I find extremely funny for some unknown reason.
Various objects in each level can work as barriers for the monsters, such as ice blocks that can only be collided with once before the ice breaks. Colliding two monsters together will also cause the moving one to stop and stick to the monster it makes contact with. Some monsters leave a sticky trail in their wake; the trail creates a sticky barrier for other monsters to stop on.
Three-stars
Some tiles look like tunnels that will cause your monster to reproduce, adding an extra monster into the mix. Between all the different types of monsters and game elements, it doesn’t take much for Pudding Monsters to become a little challenging.
All levels have a three-star system as each level has three-star tiles on the floor. This means that your final, fully-joined pudding monster must rest on all three tiles to earn three stars. This leads to the game’s most satisfying moments, as I often found myself knowing how to get my monster on to one side of the screen but unsure how to end the stage with the monster sitting on the other side, where the star tiles would happen to be.
Visuals and Controls
New elements are introduced constantly in Pudding Monsters, helping things remain fresh from beginning to end. In all, there are 125 levels to keep you busy. The art style is quite charming, with the happily animated monsters blinking their eyes and bouncing along to the beat of the music.
The touch screen controls the game; joycon controls are not available as you have to hold your Switch vertically to play the game. Holding my Switch vertical felt very alien to me, and I would have preferred to hold the Switch normally. But maybe it costs a lot of money to port the game from mobile to Switch, and the developers didn’t feel the need to update it to suit the Nintendo Switch. It would be something that would put me off buying a game on the Switch if it displayed vertically as it just feels so alien and uncomfortable to hold it like that.
Conclusion
Pudding Monsters is an enjoyable game in quick bursts. The sliding monster puzzles just give enough of a challenge without it turning into frustration. But beware, for a game that is $0,99 on the app store, I wonder why it is priced at $4,99 in the eShop, especially since the developers haven’t updated the game to suit the system it is being released on.
Final Verdict: I Like it 
At the moment, it’s on sale for $1.99. Thanks for the review.