Adventures of Pip was hidden away in the back of the 6th floor at PAX, and if you didn’t get a chance to check it out you really should swing by their Kickstarter and give them a look. Of all the games shown at PAX, from the big name triple A games to the tiny little indies, Adventures of Pip was by far my favorite.
The story begins with Pip, a boy who is nothing more than a single pixel in a world of higher resolution characters. On the princess’ 16th birthday – it has to be, it’s an evil villain rule – an evil witch appears and absorbs all the pixels in the kingdom! Pip is mostly unfazed by this, having been a single pixel his entire life, but the rest of the world is terrified and crippled by this change. Pip finds himself in the unique position of going from one of the lowest members of the social caste to the hero that must save the entire kingdom. As you progress through the storyline you encounter a ghost that teaches you the witch’s secret to consuming pixels, allowing you to up your own resolution as you go. Each change offers new and interesting mechanics that allow you to deal with puzzles, and the game makes it clear that you’re going to be changing your resolution between the high end one and your ‘true’ form as a single pixel. Single pixel Pip is small and can get into places that would otherwise be inaccessible for anyone larger, while the next resolution stage gives you your fast and agile jumper and climber. The last most detailed stage gives Pip some heavy hitting power and even a sword so you can break through big walls and take down tough enemies. That’s not the only place where strategy comes into play. As you continue through the level and find you need to ‘de-rez’ you’ll notice a small explosion whenever you shed some of those excess pixels. That explosion can take out walls that are impervious to your sword, or kill enemies you can’t quite reach.
Adventures of Pip is a game that brings back the fun nostalgia of side scrolling platformers that’s missing in today’s 3-d realistic graphics world. I honestly wanted to just sit down in a giant beanbag and play for hours. If you’re familiar with platformers then jumping into Adventures of Pip will be second nature to you, but don’t expect it to be easy. TicToc Games has focused on making sure that the game is difficult while entertaining and offers a strong challenge to the veteran player. The graphics play on your sense of nostalgia and the controls are very intuitive and organic. Honestly, I can’t say enough good things about Adventures of Pip and the team behind it. Playing the game had me smiling the whole time and I was honestly sad when the demo was over. Adventures of Pip offers the fun and childish whimsy we all know and love in new and imaginative ways. The game has been greenlit on Steam, and the current plan is to release on PC, Mac and Wii U. Estimated release date is January 2015, but here’s the hard part: they’ve only got 20 days left on their Kickstarter and just over $7.5k to go so if you’re interested in checking it out, again head over to the Kickstarter and give it a look. If you like the game, support it! If you do go check it out, let me know what you think of it below. Meanwhile I’m off to play the demo yet again.