Prepare Yourself to get Mauled by a Puzzler with Real Claws
Screw you, Kiko’s Apple Adventure. You lured me in with your cute bear character, lo-fi graphics and assumption that I was in for a breezy puzzler. You lied to me. This was meant to be my relaxation game between games.
Kiko’s Apple Adventure is a wolf in bear’s clothing. Do not be mistaken: from screenshots this might seem like a simple riff on a sokoban, a family-friendly puzzle game where you’re innocently trying to find apples for an apple festival. I mean, it’s not not those things, but that simplicity becomes fiendishly difficult, and the family-friendly theming covers up a particularly challenging set of layered mechanics.
Surely There Were Easier Apples to Find?
The aim is pretty simple. You need to hop into a level and get one or more apples onto a raft. But even that comes with asterisks. The apple, in true sokoban style, needs to be pushed onto the raft, which means you need space behind the apple to push it. The raft, meanwhile, is mobile, and you can hop onto it to reposition. The raft moves in a sliding-puzzle style: you slide from one end of the grid to the other, stopped only by other blocks and islands. You can’t just sidle up to the apple and park.
Oh, and if you want to get off the raft, you are going to need space to do so. Moor next to the apple and you might think that you’ve done well, only to find that – to dismount the raft – you have to move the apple into a corner. The first levels have fun hoisting you on your own petard in this way.
The opening levels, accessed from a lovely Super Mario World-style world map, might lull you into a false security. With some sokoban skills and simple spatial awareness, you can tick a few of the levels off. But then the additional mechanics queue up to get in.
We’re Going to Need a Bigger Raft
They start with sharks. Sharks will hunt down your raft if they are aligned with it. If you’re on the raft, they will eat you. If you’re not on the raft, they will eat your raft. Sometimes there are two or more sharks. The only saving grace is that the sharks can be lured: you can tempt them to distant corners of the map with your own delicious beary body.
We lost count of the number of times that we thought we were making headway, only to accidentally tempt a shark onto a raft. Luckily, Kiko’s Apple Adventure has an exhaustive Undo and Restart feature (with the ability to Undo after you have died – something that Afil Games’ sokobans should take note of). Within the first two worlds of Kiko’s Apple Adventure, we managed to notch up double-figures of retries on certain levels. We knew we were in trouble.
Kiko’s Apple Adventure proceeds to add more and more ideas. Portals teleport you from one location to another, but they also teleport enemies, apples and more. Whirlpools do similar things, but in the sea. Holes might sound similar again, but they can be blocked, denying baddies from hopping out and nibbling your apples. Groundhogs can be pestered to make holes, but they’re also apple thieves.
Just as you feel like you’re mastering one of these new mechanics, Kiko’s Apple Adventure starts layering them up. Half of the challenge is working out exactly what does happen when they interact: can you block a groundhog’s hole? What happens if a shark goes through a whirlpool? The answer is almost always puzzle-positive: they will work in constructive ways that make the puzzle more fiendish.
Less Onboarded, More Pushed Off-Board
I really like that Kiko’s Apple Adventure neglects to tutorialise any of this. You learn by failing (a lot), which is softened by the superb Undo feature. I also like that you’re only given two or three levels before the designers start doing loop-the-loops and ask you to complete ridiculous puzzles involving those new mechanics. There is very little room to breathe.
I also like that the combination of mechanics aren’t tutorialised: you need to expose sharks to groundhogs to portals yourself, and see how they interrelate. The solution will invariably require you combining them in some way, so you better learn quick smart-ish.
My issue, I guess, is that all of these things that I like happen at once, in combination, and in puzzles that are already freakishly challenging (with many, many permutations, so you can’t luck yourself to victory). They are all fantastic, but when they all come at you at once, it can be a little overwhelming. I will happily hold my hand up and say that some levels utterly defeated me, and I had to resort to a walkthrough to bypass them.
Which may well be a ‘me’ problem. If you are sick of being handheld through easy puzzles, then – my gosh – Kiko’s Apple Adventure is for you. It taps a baseball club on its palm, all in preparation for beating you round the head.
A Puzzler That Helps you up When You’re Down
It should also be noted that not every level is mandatory. Kiko’s Apple Adventure knows that it is more on the Mensa side, and lets you ignore some levels. Honestly, in other hands, Kiko’s Apple Adventure would have been a Hellscape that demanded constant walkthroughs, but PawPaw Games gives you all the tools you need – Undo included – to get to the end.
All that’s left is to address the elephant in the screenshots: Kiko’s Apple Adventure is not a pretty game. It’s inexplicably drained of any contrast (a pastel tint seems to have been applied to everything), and the art is a little rudimentary. It comes across as a bit of a bedroom project, which it likely was. But the game underneath is good enough to consider the lack of looks endearing. If you think the poor presentation will get in your way, then I would recommend that you rethink. You get used to it.
I have my own grudges with Kiko’s Apple Adventure – mostly that I was expecting a cozy game to review, damn you – but I am objective enough to recognise a solidly made, intricately mapped out and devious puzzle game when I see it. Kiko’s Apple Adventure is what happens when you blend a sokoban and sliding puzzle together, and sprinkle on so many additional mechanics that your ears start to bleed.
I’ve finished Kiko’s Apple Adventure and, in all honesty, I feel like I deserve a medal or fancy plaque for my office. It’s a puzzle game that looked cute and then beat me up thoroughly.
Important Links
Buy from the Xbox Store – https://www.xbox.com/en-gb/games/store/kikos-apple-adventure/9nmfxcr2lzx0
