Tony Karakashian reviewed Archibald’s Adventures for you

Archibald’s Adventures is a platformer puzzle game in the vein of Lemmings or The Amazing Machine.  You play the game’s namesake, Archibald (Archie, for short).  You’re a skater dude and you’ve managed to get yourself trapped in the basement of mad inventor Professor Klumpfus.  The professor has created a large number of weird devices and strange monsters, and they have him trapped in the mansion as well.  Your goal is to rescue the professor and escape the basement dungeon alive.

The first fifteen levels or so are full of hints, but don’t worry there’s about 100 more after that!  You’ll find terminals sprinkled about these levels where the professor gives you information on how you move around and how to operate some of the various machinery you might find.  He also explains some of the “power ups” you’ll encounter.  And, when it comes to power ups, this game has some novel ones.

The first one is an intelligent wad of gum (you read that right) that you can move around the level.  It can activate switches that might be out of reach, or can even lift boxes and move them into place so you can get over obstacles.  The second is a maintenance pod that you drive around in.  This, too, can get power ups.  The first one of these is an electromagnet that allows you stick to metal portions of the ceiling or walls.  It also has a grapple that you can shoot up to catch hold of high ceilings you wouldn’t normally be able to reach.  I haven’t gotten that far yet, but apparently I’m to encounter a jet-powered lounge chair soon.

This game is extensive.  I’ve been playing it almost every night for a week or so straight and am still only about a third of the way through.  My wife has complained “I’ve never seen you play a game this much!”  That’s because it’s simply a lot of fun.  The game play very innovative and makes this one a winner.

I do have one complaint, though: the controls do not lend themselves well to big fingered fellows as myself.  They’re so tiny my whole thumb covers them completely and that takes a lot of getting used to. Even then, they do hinder quite a bit and I’ve been forced to restart a level because the response of the character was way off from my intentions.  The controls also seem to have the odd tendency of simply going away as you’re trying to play.  I’ll find myself wondering why I’m not moving, only to find the controls have been replaced with a single button that simply brings the controls back onto screen.  There is an option to move the controls to different portions of the screen, but that doesn’t help with the size.  My recommendation to the authors would be to allow me to split them.  Have the left and down arrows on the left side of the screen and the down and right arrows on the right side.  I think that would make the game more playable.

Tony Karakashian - iPhonetunes.net

I had to take off half a point for the controls. Aside from that, this is a fantastic and fun game!