Adventures of Pip

Genre: Platformer

Players: 1

.

Review:

Adventures of Pip is a Platformer released on PC, mobile devices, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Wii U in 2015, and ported to Nintendo Switch in 2020. This game takes place in a pixelated world where the people of the world live with class discrimination based on… er… how detailed their pixel count is. Yes, very meta. Anyway, after the princess gets kidnapped and the king and queen get reduced to single-pixel characters, a young single-pixel character named Pip takes up the call to action to rescue the damsel.

Given the game’s tongue-in-cheek theme, it will of course come as no surprise when I say that this game’s presentation makes use of appealing, colorful 2D pixel art visuals. Adventures of Pip does something clever with this though, by making all of the game’s characters use different pixel counts, from blocky square characters made using a single “pixel”, to blocky Atari-esque characters, to 8-bit and 16-bit character designs. It’s a design choice that can make the presentation seem dissonant at times, but it’s clearly intentional, making for a quirky approach to pixel art visuals.

However, while the visuals are attention-grabbing, I would be remiss if I didn’t also point out this game’s excellent synthesized soundtrack by Jake Kaufman of Shovel Knight and Shantae series fame, with catchy tunes like Forest Theme and Forest Treetops Theme. This game could have gotten by with far less, and the wonderful soundtrack really helps to keep you engaged.

The gameplay is no slouch either. This game’s gimmick is that players can “power up” into a version of their character with more pixels, and each version of the character has a somewhat different power set – 1-bit Pip can float in mid-air and can bounce higher off of bouncy mushrooms, 8-bit Pip has a punch attack and can wall jump, and 16-bit Pip has a sword that can break blocks. What’s more, players who choose to power-down their character can create a small explosion needed to clear away certain types of blocks too.

These elements are not merely incidental – this game makes use of some well-crafted and very deliberate level design that requires players to switch back and forth between the different versions of the character – self-destructing to power-down and then powering up again using a specific type of enemy. The excellent level design is actually one of the better elements in this game, and it has a lot of good features.

However, at the same time, this level design is simultaneously one of the game’s more frustrating elements. See, while this level design is creative and pushes players to think about how to use the different character versions to progress, it’s also somewhat restrictive – usually players only have one way to move forward, and so getting past an area often feels less like you found a way to do it and more that you found the way the game wants you to do it.

However, while there are areas that Adventures of Pip could have been expanded on to make for more freedom, overall this is a superb Platformer with a good, original premise and a great presentation. If you’re a fan of the genre looking for something fun and unique, Adventures of Pip is an excellent choice.

tl;dr – Adventures of Pip is a Platformer where players play as the titular Pip, who can power up and down into different versions of himself with different amounts of detail in how many pixels he has, each with a different set of abilities. The concept is clever, the level design is strong, and the presentation is fantastic. I wish there were a bit more freedom to tackle the levels the way you want, but overall this is an excellent entry in the genre.

Grade: B+

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}

^{This month’s sponsors are Ben, Andy Miller, Exlene, Homer Simpin, Johannes, Talissa, Eli Goodman, Gabriel Coronado-Medina, Ilya Zverev, Kristoffer Wulff, and Seth Christenfeld. Thank you for helping to keep the reviews coming!}