We Would Get Mad at Yet Another Sokoban, but Pandas!
Of the many, many sokoban I’ve already played this year, none can touch the theme behind Panda Keeper. Instead of pushing blocks around a grid, you’re rolling pandas. Instead of holes, you are rolling them to bamboo. It’s all about the confused look as they roll and the satisfied face when they hit bamboo.
It reminds me of Chris Packham, oddly enough. He faced the internet’s wrath for saying that perhaps saving pandas might not be worth the money. I can imagine Chris Packham feverishly gesturing to Panda Keeper and saying “this, this is why”.
Roll those Giant Raccoons
The pandas are my favourite thing about Panda Keeper, which tracks as this is another sokoban from the Afil Games factory line. Even Afil Games would admit that they put out a borderline ridiculous number of these games in a year, which makes them hard to get excited about. But while we may not be sounding the bugles at another of their releases, we can freely admit that the production quality on them is excellent.
That’s the thing with games that are borne from formulae like this: you can make sure the formula is solid as a rock. And it really is solid in the case of Afil sokoban games. The puzzles are relatively small which allows the presentation to ‘go chunky’, giving each game a tactile, toy-like feel.
The controls are spot on, allowing input from either analogue stick or directional buttons. The one gimmick – if you can call it that – is that the boxes (pandas) can be moved in and out of their destination (bamboo) which works well. So well, in fact, that it’s been replicated in roughly one game every two weeks by the publisher.
Slick as a Wet Panda
And it’s all fully featured. Being able to jab the Undo button and pull a panda away from a wall is always satisfying, and the Reset button is near instantaneous. There is no Hint or Skip button, which we complain madly about, but what is here is superb.
Then there are the puzzles, which have the madness-inducing ability of seeming obvious when you first arrive in the puzzle, but they soon reveal that there is a significant obstacle to completion. Almost to a level, the pandas will sit next to bamboo, but you can’t just nudge them on. Something will be blocking you. And unblocking that blockage is what a sokoban is all about.
Panda Keeper is one of the hard ones. In Afil Games terms at least. I first got stuck on Level 6, which is pitiful. That’s level 6 of 30, which is a terrible proportion. It only got worse from there. I even had to wait till launch and hope that one of those ‘100% Completion!’ YouTube videos popped up. There’s nothing that will hit your sokoban credibility more than relying on a video to be uploaded.
But it should be noted that the puzzles are very good. Familiar, but very good. I’ll never fail to be bemused with how a company can produce so many intricate and complicated puzzles with a grid and some blocks. The downside is the Déjà vu. If you’ve played more than a couple of these, there will be a nagging suspicion that you’ve played some of these layouts – or minor variants – before.
Here Come the Sokoban Blues
Pandas aside, I can’t bring much more enthusiasm than what I’ve just written to the surface. There is nothing new here. There’s the tired feeling of playing a product rather than a game. Moving blocks around a grid is starting to feel like a job rather than a pastime. Which is my way of saying that you shouldn’t play Panda Keeper in close proximity to other Afil sokoban games. It has no nutritional value for those players.
Panda Keeper is well suited to lovers of the chunky bears who have never played a sokoban before. The unaware pandas are hilarious, and this is about as easy to grasp as a sokoban is going to get. Not that it’s easy to solve: it’s actually fiendish. But tinkering with the puzzles is instantly gratifying.
For anyone else, Panda Keeper is a harder sell. It’s the latest in a long line of polished but virtually identical sokoban games, which makes pointing at any of them and saying ‘play this one!’ virtually impossible. Except this one has rolling pandas, so perhaps I’ve just killed my own argument.
Important Links
Panda Keeper Keeps Puzzling Simple, Smart And Satisfying – https://www.thexboxhub.com/panda-keeper-keeps-puzzling-simple-smart-and-satisfying/
Buy from the Xbox Store, Optimised for Series X|S – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/panda-keeper-xbox-series/9NHFM4PSHCZG/0010
Buy an Xbox One version – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/panda-keeper-xbox-one/9N0JGMD42ND1/0010
Grab the game for PC – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/panda-keeper-windows/9MZR13CSZ4X2/0010
