Game: Ugly
Genre: Puzzle Platformer
System: Steam (Windows) (also available for Epic Games Store, itch.io, Xbox, Switch, and coming to mobile in 2024)
Developer|Publisher: Team Ugly | Graffiti Games
Controller Support: Full
Price: UK £16.75 | US $19.99 | EU € 19,50
Release Date: September 14th, 2023
Review code provided with many thanks to Team Ugly.
Ugly is a puzzle platformer with a deep, thoughtful story, challenging puzzles, and polished graphics. Not only do you need to solve well-thought-out puzzles, but you’ll also need to collect memories and sketches of our hero’s tumultuous past.
The Story of Ugly
We awaken an ugly Prince in an empty castle, surrounded by empty alcohol bottles. As we travel through the empty rooms, memories assault us, played out in weird little crayon sketches obviously made by a child. We are alone, we are lonely, we are abandoned here.
As you move from room to room, unlocking doors by solving puzzles, you learn more and more about the childhood of the ugly Prince. He has been abused by his father and forced to wear a mask to cover his ugly face. His handsome father’s face appears again and again as the game progresses, captured in stone and portraits, each defaced by his tortured son.
With both his parents gone, our Prince must face his past to move on.
The Gameplay of Ugly
Like most puzzle platformers, the ugly prince must move through locations by jumping, running, and utilizing the game’s core mechanic: a mirror shard that allows you to move between two places. The mirror can be placed in front of you or underneath you, placing a mirrored version of yourself on the other side of it. This allows you to move through walls and other objects in the way of progress.
This will allow you to place the mirror shard and move through all the rooms with slowly increasing puzzle difficulty. The mirror shard also allows you to play movies; it acts as a reflector from the projector to the screen, playing looping movies that are related to the story being played.
Each section of Ugly is broken down into Rooms, and each Room contains less than ten levels, each locked behind a key. They can be done in any order, and when you complete all the sections in a Room, you will have to take on a boss fight. The boss battles utilize your ability to reflect yourself to defeat them.
The Pros of Ugly as a Puzzle Platformer
Wow, Ugly is truly a stunning game. It’s challenging in the best way, not impossible, but you feel accomplished after you figure out a particularly challenging puzzle rather than being upset at solutions. It’s shockingly beautiful in a very ugly setting, filled to the brim with complex backgrounds and highly detailed locals. The music is low and sinister, keeping with the game’s theming and utter entrancing.
Every room in this place is haunting, filled to the brim with bad feelings and even worse memories. Mirrors are broken, paintings torn and painted over, furniture shattered, and toys scattered and broken. The only things that seem to be exempt from the damage are portraits of our hero’s loving and protective mother. The environment tells us the story of the ugly prince even before we begin to interact with the narrative elements.
While the look of Ugly is cartoon-like and brilliantly colorful, it still manages to have a dark, unsettling quality to everything inside. It’s not overtly horror; there aren’t really jump scares or gore or anything, but it still somehow manages to feel like a horror game.
There is a built-in hint system that can be toggled on and off in the settings menu; there are actually quite a few accessibility settings to help those who are not used to platformers, those who are colorblind, and other issues to still find success with Ugly. And if you have read any of my articles before this one, you know I love anything that makes games more accessible.
The Cons of Ugly
There aren’t any. For real. Play this game.
Conclusion
I haven’t quite finished Ugly, but I am definitely going to. So far, it’s been without bugs, fun, interesting, unique, and has a wonderful story. The environment is so rich with details that it tells its own story; the mechanics are interesting and different. I love the music, the movement, and everything about Ugly, and I can’t wait to see what happens next.
Final Verdict: Two Thumbs Up:
