So much for an uncomfortable existential dread from last week: it’s really sick comedy. But make no mistake about it: Long Puppy and Otto’s Galactic Groove!!, the newest Season Two instalment, will challenge you while tickling your funny bone. A break after much cosmic canine capering would be welcomed. Blippo+ will be waiting in the wings.
Long Puppy
indiana-jonas
Playdate developers? They’re not simply different; they’ve got a different coding! This quirky little console has swiftly become my personal gate to the unfathomable realm of games, and “Long Puppy” stands as the newest delightfully odd transmission. For epic builds, with sprawling narratives, forget it. This is purely fetch. Pure adrenaline of fetch. You’re a dachshund, happily galloping alongside your human, units under one mission: to get that slobbery, well-loved ball. Sounds idyllic? Almost…normal? Hold that thought. The Playdate wouldn’t have it any other way.
Consider each stage a twisted Escher creation: gravity-defying platforms, subterranean lairs best kept concealed, and hazardous one-way doors. Do not stay long appreciating the architecture because time’s the killer where the tick-tock-tick-tock soon fades into the backdrop. Now, it’s an outright race against an ethereal hound, all jaws and fury, that seeks your ball and your head! In a way, though, not much of your average platforming hazards would end up coming its way; movement and scoring become the really weird adversity. Not just challenging, fun craziness, this.
This is not anything like any typical pooch. Just imagine a dachshund, but with a difference: Its head spins a full 360, a dizzying compass controlling its every stretchy slink. Walking is not under its vocabulary; this peculiar dog/slinky hybrid is extending and retracting.
Levels turn into buffet lines; each morsel augments the already-unnatural body, spanning apparent chasms in disquieting elasticity. The effect; an alien squeezed into a dachshund costume, desperately trying to appear normal and failing spectacularly.
But the strangeness deepens. Intermingled with the foodstuffs, scent-filled puddles await. These are not just any puddles; they are olfactory chronicles faithfully entered in a special pee journal. Clown pee? By all means. The unmistakable aroma of a loafing cat? You bet. Get ready for an unheard-of sniffing safari.
It is the sublime unspeakable with which you’re faced. You’ve guided your canine companion through dangerous terrain, the precious ball clutched in its…you get the idea. Victory is at hand! But a much final event is still to be completed-cranking. An enormous…deep deposit. The sheer altitude of the genital fecal monument will determine your final completion score. 100%? Depends on the poop.
Beyond the absurd premise, there lies a surprisingly ingenious game. It lures you in with the promise of serene puzzle-platforming and then BAM! The chaos of ghost dogs. So much for serenity; instead, well, I’ve been hooked. Utterly, completely, damn well inexplicably riveted. Call me a fan. Call me a big, pretty bewildered fan of whatever that beautiful madness is.
Otto’s Galactic Groove!!
Team Otto
Otto’s Galactic Groove!!: both a blessing and a curse. It’s vibrant, quirky dance from the rhythm genre, with a sugary-sweet plot and a very groovy soundtrack in tow. But under all that shiny polish is a monster that feeds on my deepest insecurities: my inner completionist. Remember Guitar Hero days? Just like that, I am chained to each track, chasing that phantom perfect score with every ounce of will. I’m sure the neighbors have gone through the motions to complain about the noise. While I can generally keep that menace under control in other games, rhythm games are my weakest point. The 100% completion stands up and taunts me until I make it mine and I go to sleep. I made a lie, just one more try. Sanity? Who needs it?
In the neon-lit cosmic realm of “Otto’s Galactic Groove!!,” our dear bunnikin of the sea, Otto, sets out on an interstellar quest. His mission is to bring the inspiring spark into the hitherto aloof alien music master Tomie. Otto bounces among some absurd and beautiful planets, adrift amidst an array of weird and wonderful characters; from a singing space pirate to a depressed Martian crooner, each planet beats in a distinct rhythm. Jam along with these cosmic folks and lend your musical talents to their alien tunes so they can help Otto convey the sonic inspiration that Tomie desperately needs!
No “easy mode” here. You basically get thrown right into the deep end from Day One. Casual would be more like “casual smackdown.” My first couple of attempts at the tutorial song felt anything but a “gentle introduction” and were more a desperate scramble. Forget everything you knew about just hitting a button on time. You’re now messing around with a crank to move an oval-shaped target. Picture trying to pat your head with one hand, rub your belly with the other, and defuse a bomb at the same time. That’s the level of coordination we’re talking about here. And the “sweet spot”? Don’t even get me started. It’s not even dead center. You would have to estimate the impact time, kind of like a pool player. Well, thankfully, an update has affected this, toning down the madness a bit and making it a little easier to grasp. But still, brace yourself. This is a rhythm game with teeth.
The soundtrack offers a delightful genre-bender, a sonic kaleidoscope to keep things fresh. I mean, unless you are like me, obsessively chasing perfection and looping the tracks endlessly. From the get-go, one auditory highlight was a heartbroken fish crooner serenading me in bluesy ballads gliding into my digital heartstrings. But the real treat? The “Jukebox” feature bursting with tunes from fellow Playdate gems like Resonant Tale and Bloom. Such a beautiful cross-pollination of sounds truly speaks to the platform’s indie vigor.
The game’s soundtrack is a delightful genre-bender, a kaleidoscopic sound-space keeping things always fresh. Unless you are like me, obsessively chasing perfection and looping the tracks endlessly. One early standout? A heartbroken-fish balladeer spilling bluesy laments of lost love that hit me in all the right digital heartstrings. But what really got my blood pumping? The “Jukebox,” loaded with tunes from other Playdate gems like Resonant Tale and Bloom. This kind of cross-pollination of sounds really speaks to the indie energy of the platform.
Another Playdate game means another crank-powered comic strip narrative – like, I’m really attached to this clever way of telling a story. Going by an outsider’s view, sheer mayhem. My partner kept glancing my way, with worry etched across his face due to the syllables spewing from my corner of the room, and especially after a crash annihilated my very first progress in Otto’s Galactic Groove!! Don’t let the screams fool you, I am having an absolute blast… a weirdly masochistic, but fun, kind of blast.
Thanks for reading Playdate Season 2 review: Long Puppy and Ottos Galactic Groove!!
