Axel & Pixel

Developer: Silver Wish Games

Category: Miscellaneous
Steam Release: Oct 2010
Usual Price: £3.49
Hours Played: 4
Controller Compatible: No
Rating: N/A

GAMEPLAY

If it's an arty, avant-garde, point and click adventure you're after then you've come to the right place. Be prepared to embark on a bizarre but pleasant journey with this one. You control a sparkling cursor over a bizarre series of environments that consist partly of photographs of various fauna and plantlife. These areas are inhabited by fantastical creatures that resemble characters from those trippy and slightly disturbing animated kids' programmes that they showed back in the 1970s. Even so with lots of odd-looking and out of proportion structures coupled with a large nod to Tolkein-esque images, the artwork remains unique and certainly peculiar. As you hover the cursor over various items it changes to an icon which indicates that our eponymous heroes are able to interact with it with a mouse-click. 

Much like Botanicula, you can then sit back and see what occurs. A lot of the time, your click will be ineffectual as it will often just initiate a grunt, a groan, an incoherent exclamation or a comical wail. If you're lucky or if you've actually figured out the puzzle, Axel or Pixel will perform a productive action which will help our heroes negotiate their way out of their predicament and onto the next screen. Unlike Botanicula, which sends you off on a wild goose chase and has you madly clicking on random things, the more linear style of Axel & Pixel gives you the sense that you can actually work out the conundrum with a bit of patience and logic.

  

PROGRESS & DESIGN
Rock-solid menus are artfully done, as you would expect, with plenty of user-friendly pathways to explore at the start-screen. However, you only get one profile. On clicking Play Story you are taken to a screen with plenty of information regarding progress and stats. For a start, in the form of a roll of film, you can choose any one of the twenty-four chapters that you have completed by clicking on the screenshot of that chapter. Secondly, all relevant information regarding items you have collected such as paintings, tubes of paint and dog-bones are clearly displayed with the amount collected and the maximum possible amount you can find.

 

CONCLUSION

Axel & Pixel is one of those rare adventure games that can actually be completed by people with an aversion to adventure games! The intriguing design of the puzzles and the way the puzzles will draw you in will make you want to continue with this title. The vast majority of the time I wasn't disappointed and just warmed to the general kookiness and weird mechanics of the game. It's doable, fun and has entertaining mini-games to boot!