I played Little Bug so you don't have to

This is a review of Little Bug by Buddy System and Red Deer Games. It does contain spoilers, but it's a platformer so there's not much to spoil.

I've had this game on my wishlist for a while now as it seemed like a cozy platforming game. So when my cozy gaming community decided to play this for our game of the month, I was all over it.

Twenty minutes later, I was the opposite of "all over it." I was simply, over it.

I bought Little Bug on sale for around $2 so I'm not mad at what I paid for it. I definitely got $2 of playtime out of it. But oh my that playtime was a struggle.

It starts off super cute. There's even a brief amount of story that hits you right in the feels. And then you're given control of one character that can move horizontally with the left stick and another ball of light that controls vertical movement and that you move with the right stick. You trigger the interaction between the two using one of the right bumper buttons.

This seems simple enough, and for a while, it is. That while for me lasted 20 minutes. And then there were enemies. And things to avoid. And eventually ice??? Don't game developers know not to add ice to levels at this point??

The puzzles were challenging, which would have been fine on its own, but then your characters move at entirely different speeds and it's up to you to keep them together. Your main character moves slowly. Very slowly. And your ball of light goes flying across the screen at the smallest touch of a button.

So you're trying to keep the two together, move quickly across the screen, dodge enemies, and overall stay alive.

I did not stay alive.

I died many times and, in my opinion, there were about half as many save points as there should have been. I had to redo the same tricky puzzle so many times it lost all sense of fun.

And the ice. I was willing to finish this game until I hit the ice. The main character already has a small amount of drift to her. You'll land from a jump and if you're not paying super close attention, she'll bounce a little and often times bounce right off the edge. So annoying. So then you add ice to the mix and this poor girl is sliding right off the edges of platforms into the hands of danger.

Add the sliding to the jumping and you've got a dangerously fast moving character. One that actually moves too fast for your ball of light to keep up. The ball of light that you control, might I remind you, and that you need to avoid certain enemies and solve most puzzles.

So here I am, hurdling across the screen, leaving my ball of light screens behind me, watching this poor character fall to her death, and cursing at my screen when my partner calls from the other room: "Do you need help?"

"Not yet."

I was determined. I wanted to finish this game since it only has about a two hour play time and playing more games all the way through was part of my new year's resolution.

But I couldn't do it. One slippery slide to my death after another, I persisted, but eventually it was too much.

I called in reinforcements. My partner finished the entire ice arena for me and gave me back the controller at what seemed like the end of the game.

And then I walked by a save point.

And a creature came looming in the dark background.

And hands of death came grasping at me from all angles.

And I had to navigate two different puzzles at the same time with my two different characters.

I tried twice. That's right. I tried to beat the final level, or what I assume is the final level, twice. And then I stated "I'm not doing this." And moved on to write this review.

This game has cute aesthetics and horrifying mechanics. I give it a 4/10, would not recommend. There was maybe an hour where I was enjoying myself, but it was an R-rated hour for language used in my living room.

I'm proud of myself for making it through as much of this game as I did. I'm going to count it towards the list of games I finished this year. I'm not actually going to finish it. In fact, I don't think I'll ever come back to it.

So, if weird mechanics, keeping track of two things at the same time, and f-ing ice levels are your jam, play this game. Otherwise, I suggest moving to the next game in your to-be-played list.