A Sliding-Puzzle that Dodges ‘Shovelware’ Labels, but Only Just
Chico’s Delivery arrives at an odd time for Afil Games. The Brazilian publisher has been singled out by PlayStation, as the platform-holder has unceremoniously pulled 900 of Afil’s games from the PlayStation Store. Chico’s Delivery has sneaked through that net – it’s still on the PlayStation Store as it stands – but that may change. Regardless, the news has put a little more focus on Chico’s Delivery than it normally would. Does Chico’s Delivery make a strong case against the shovelware accusations? Is it the kind of game that should remain on the Xbox Store?
In a way, it’s a shame that Chico’s Delivery was the one to launch directly after the news. Afil Games are absolutely capable of publishing games that excite and innovate – Avenue Escape and Sands and Relics, both released recently, are good examples. But Chico’s Delivery isn’t one of them. It is, unfortunately for Afil Games, more fuel to the opposition’s argument.
Would You Buy a Pizza From a Rollerskating Chicken?
Chico’s Delivery is a sliding puzzle game. Tap in a cardinal direction and your chicken-waiter, Chico, will slide in one direction until he hits a wall. Chico is carrying pizzas, and his aim is to reach some dining tables that want those pizzas. The problem is that the tables have little patience – they’re not willing to watch Chico crash around the arena with their pizzas – so they have a move-counter, ticking down. You need to reach the tables before that counter reaches zero. Each table has a different move-counter.
Sliding puzzles are common as muck, and a move-counter isn’t particularly revolutionary. I’d say half of your modern sliding puzzles have a limit on the number of moves you can make, either as a star ranking or as a mandatory limit like this one. So Chico’s Delivery adds a couple of extra wrinkles in the attempt to set it apart.
The first wrinkle is weird brown-disk things (we think they are meant to be seats?) that ‘pop up’ once they have been travelled over once. Chico can rollerskate over them and they will elevate, allowing you to treat them as walls. They effectively change the make-up of the arena.
A Sliding Puzzle with Some New Ingredients
As wrinkles go, it’s not bad. Knowing when to ‘pop’ them becomes part of the challenge, and it adds more permutations to the number of possible solutions. I’m just not convinced they add all that much: in almost all instances, you will need to pop them earlier rather than later, otherwise why would they be there? Only a couple of levels subvert that expectation.
The other wrinkle is that old indie-game chestnut: portals. I have zero idea how this folds into the whole ‘chicken pizzeria’ thing (they look like melted cheese, which is no portal that I would ever willingly leap into). Slide into one, and you will emerge from the other portal in the same direction. They’re useful for reaching dining tables before the move-counter depletes.
I’m just a little done with portals, which is an extremely subjective reaction. It’s the go-to mechanic for pretty much any budget indie game, regardless of genre, and it’s particularly common in sliding puzzles. So, while it might attempt to mix things up in Chico’s Delivery, I couldn’t help groaning a little when I saw them. My fingers were crossed that something else would get added to the mix, to enliven my experience of playing Chico’s Delivery. But nothing else arrived: the portals get added at the halfway point, and take you through to the very end.
As With Other Afil Games, the Puzzle Layouts are not the Problem
In puzzle-design terms, Chico’s Delivery does a decent job. It’s more constrained than your average sliding puzzle, as none of the layouts go beyond a 10×8 grid. That smallness restricts the puzzle designers somewhat, as there are only so many ways that a player can slide. But the level-ingredients are used well: tables and their move-counters are out-of-reach, and the popping seats tempt you to rise them early. There was a good mix of self-evident puzzles and ones that had us retrying a few times over.
On that note, I would have liked an Undo feature. It’s an odd omission for Afil Games, who make sure that you have plenty of Undo and Retry options in their other games. We will tuck it into the Suggestions Box alongside a reason to replay, star rankings per level, and more levels than the reasonably skimpy 30 that are on offer here.
If Chico’s Delivery was a pizza, it would be a margherita. It’s functional and even enjoyable in places, but I had the abiding sense that I had played it (tasted it) before. Portals and move-counters are added to bring some flavour, but they don’t disrupt the sliding puzzle stuff enough. The result is overly familiar and a little bland.
Sliding Shovelware?
Chico’s Delivery is not shovelware. People toss that word out too freely, and there are games on the Xbox Store that deserve the label more than this. It offers up new ideas, after all, and that shouldn’t invoke the ‘Sh’ word.
But that doesn’t stop Chico’s Delivery from being a mediocre sliding puzzle game. Its new ideas don’t have enough impact, and the abiding feeling is that you’re playing something that you’ve likely played umpteen times before. You can at least see where PlayStation was coming from.
Important Links
Chico’s Delivery Brings Sliding Pizza Puzzles To Xbox And PC – https://www.thexboxhub.com/chicos-delivery-brings-sliding-pizza-puzzles-to-xbox-and-pc/
Buy from the Xbox Store, Optimised for Series X|S – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/chicos-delivery-xbox-series/9N51JVH4JWGK/0010
There’s an Xbox One edition – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/chicos-delivery-xbox-one/9NDSP940BXT3/0010
And a Windows PC version – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/chicos-delivery-windows/9P21T2KSV3CB/0010
