Pushy and Pully in Blockland

Genre: Top-Down Arcade / Puzzle

Players: 1-2 Co-Op (Local)

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Review:

(Note: Review code provided by the kind folks at Resistance Studio)

Pushy and Pully is an Arcade-style game with Puzzle elements in the same vein as classics of the genre like the Adventures of Lolo series and Kickle Cubicle, where players must navigate through a multitude of single-screen levels filled with enemies, pushing blocks in the level to defeat those enemies. This game was released on multiple platforms in 2020, including Nintendo Switch.

For a game that seems to be aiming to recapture the magic of classic old-school 8- and 16-bit games, the presentation here manages that wonderfully. This game makes use of colorful, expressive, cartoony characters and environments with a lot of personality to them, and a tile-based look reminiscent of the games of the aforementioned era. This is paired with a nice, catchy soundtrack with some upbeat synthesized themes and a lovely piano hook after completing each level. The combined effect is a wonderfully nostalgic one.

The core gameplay itself here is quite good too, with players pushing sliding blocks to squish enemies that move around the area, with different enemies having different movement and attack patterns. Pushing a block directly into an adjacent block will remove the block completely, and phishing a block into a line of three blocks of a matching color will clear them and create a bonus item – either a bomb that can harm enemies in a 3×3 area, a liftable block that can be put down wherever you like, or a diamond that adds bonus points to your score.

There’s some nice variety here too – every few levels you’ll encounter a puzzle level with no time limit, but where every movement must be carefully considered to complete the level, and the end of each world features a boss with some creative mechanics that helps to shake things up. And new elements and enemy types are added with enough regularity to keep things from getting too repetitive.

I also feel like I should add that this game features 2-player co-op gameplay that’s really excellent, with players being able to operate independently, or even work together to get blocks into position, with one player acting as a “stopper” of sorts for the other player to push blocks into. The added utility and coordination of 2-player co-op makes this one of the game’s highlights.

However, there are some downsides here too. Firstly, the visuals aren’t the only thing tile-based here – so too is the movement, meaning that players can only move one full tile horizontally or vertically, and must complete the movement before changing direction. This results in some really stiff movement that can be frustrating and make the game feel unresponsive at times. It doesn’t help that the movement speed here is a bit on the slow side, making it agonizing at times when you start a movement and have to wait for the game to finish it before you can change course.

Also frustrating are this game’s time limits – most levels feature these limits, and going past them will cause a flying enemy to hunt you down in a way that can’t be avoided for more than a few seconds. While players looking for a challenge might enjoy this, I really do wish there were an option to turn this element of the game off.

Finally, there is one element to the co-op play that’s less than ideal, and that’s what happens when the skill level between players is unbalanced. If players are about on par with one another, they’ll presumably lose all their lives at roughly the same time more or less, and simply be able to move on using the continue screen. However, if one player loses all of their lives before the other, the remaining player could potentially play on for a lengthy period of time alone, which kinda’ defeats the purpose of co-op. I think this game may have been better served by pooling its players’ lives.

While it’s not without its flaws, Pushy and Pully is still a fun game that does a good job of imitating Arcade classics in how it looks and feels, and it delivers some quality co-op play as well. It could have used more options and a bit of tweaking here and there, but overall this is an enjoyable game I think is likely to be a decent choice for old-school videogame fans and co-op fans alike.

tl;dr – Pushy and Pully is a Top-Down Arcade-style game with Puzzle elements that’s reminiscent of genre classics like the Lolo games and Kickle Cubicle. The presentation here is excellent, the co-op play is wonderful, and the core mechanics are sound, though some stiff gameplay and a lack of options mar the experience. Overall, this is a decent entry in the genre worth checking out.

Grade: C+

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