The Unlikely Legend of Rusty Pup

This game has a really dark spooky vibe going, basically the concept of the game is to get rusty to grab these brain cubes while guiding him to the exit. You have no control of rusty and must use light to direct him. Using the mouse you create platforms to keep him from dying. I'm 3-4 hours into this game and I only collected 10 brains but I'm terrible at puzzles so that's my fault haha. The game looks fantastic and stands out from other indie games. The only issue with this game is I actually have to think....curse you developers

In development for what felt like forever, but damn well worth the wait! :D

Difficult, complex, and extremely addictive. I don't often play games where I get stuck on one level for nearly an hour and don't get bored or angry once. It reminds me of the Donkey Kong Country games, where failing over and over until you learn all the ins and outs of the level and do it in one final flawless attempt is the most satisfying part of the experience. It doesn’t hold your hand, but makes you feel like a genius when you figure out all its little tricks ("THAT'S why those big arrows are there!") and complete a level. Visually it's beautiful, the art style has so much charm and there are so many small details to catch. There's so much going on but it's not distracting and all builds up this really intriguing dark atmosphere. I'm only a few hours in but there's a great sense of mystery from the environment and the voices that has me determined to get through all the levels just to see more. And as a huge Conker fan you can imagine my joy at hearing Chris Seavor's voices again. Also, Rusty is adorable. He’s scared of the dark and hearts come out of him when you pet him to wake him up. Why haven’t you bought this game yet?

its a game i really wanted to like but it ended up not clicking with me. i love the presentation. the look of the game, the sounds, the voice acting, the character designs. all great. the puzzles and overall gameplay design are not great. the game is just too heavy on trial and error: start a new stage, wait for rusty pup to go on his set direction and die, restart the stage, make a little bit more progress, see rusty die again, restart the stage, repeat. a big problem is how there's teleporters but you're never certain where the other end of the teleporter is going to be. the teleporters are color coded but with how big most of the stages are and the fact that the teleporters are obscured by darkness you can't really tell which teleporters which, or even what's supposed to be a teleporter. you can't stop and think about your next move either: there's a time limit, and a very strict one at that. basically one mistake and the time runs out. back to the beginning of the stage. no checkpoints, no speedup option, no nothing. so what should have been a relaxing puzzle game experience ends up being an annoying, frustrating escort mission type game. it's unfortunate that i ended up not liking the game. but you win some and lose some. i guess that's just how life is sometimes.

The Unlikely Legend of Rusty Pup is a puzzle game for those who don't mind a damn hard challenge. It is deceptively hard. The minds behind Conker's Bad Fur Day nailed a really unique artstyle, with prerendered sprites that animated fluidly and are high resolution, along with an grimey industrial/sewers aesthetic that would feel proper in a modern Conker game, or Rare of the past. However, even though you're in the dark depths of... wherever you are, bright colors from various light sources keep things interesting and visually popping. The sound is minimal, but works perfectly with the aesthetic with appropriate clinks, clangs and scrapes. There's also awesome voice over work by Chris Seavor all presented in rhymes of several unseen characters giving tutorials, narrating Rusty Pup's adventure or mocking you as you lead him to death. Gameplay of Rusty Pup involves you, as a omnipotent hand, interacting with things to turn on lights and place platforms so Rusty Pup can traverse the 2D environments. Everything is done via mouse, and you have no direct control over Rusty Pup himself. He will wander aimlessly in one direction unless he reaches an area too dark, a wall or some certain ledges. Rusty Pup also has a time limit as to how long he'll stay alive per level, so you have to think fast as there's no pause button to allow you to think things out. Thinking quickly on your feet helps a lot, however most puzzles are going to be trial and error because they can get quite complex. For instance, I currently am facing a level that requires me to make several clones of Rusty Pup and guide each of them on their own path at the same time. Figuring a level out and collecting everything is really rewarding, especially those that have taken me over 20 minutes to figure out. Rusty Pup does have it's issues though. For instance, the game visually has 3 planes, a blurry foreground, the gameplay area and the background which is just there for added details; the problem is that all of these are so detailed that it can often get confusing as to what's in the playable area and where you have to go. I love the aesthetic but I found this to be an issue and I'm sure others will too. The game being mouse-only makes it feel like a mobile title (and it rightfully is one being on iOS), but hotkeys could easily improve the experience with things like jumping to Rusty Pup automatically (you can click an icon for this but, I'd rather have a key) hotkeys to select certain tiles to place, etc. I love the whole package and at 2.2 hours in, and a 17% completion there is a lot of game here to enjoy. If you're a fan of challenging puzzle titles, pick up The Unlikely Legend of Rusty Pup.

From what I've played of this game so far, I really enjoy it! It's a fun puzzle/strategy game and man do I enjoy to hear Chris Seavor's voice in a game again. The art style in-of-itself is just gorgeous as well, you can tell a lot of love was put into this project and that's all I really need. Also LOVE the subtle music that plays when Rusty Pup is sleeping, very eerie. On a side note, hope that this game gets ported to some consoles in the future. I think it'd do really well on there!

Not your typical puzzle game, a lot of the challenge seems to be learning how Rusty behaves and how to guide him around a level, which for me has been mostly trial and error. Be prepared to die a lot, and learn from those mistakes. Only a couple hours in so far and I think it's a nice learning curve, just when you think you've got the hang of one mechanic something new is introduced and creates another level of complexity. Things get interesting when the levels start branching out into new areas locked behind gates (unlocked by collecting enough brains of course). I've already unlocked an optional area and hit a tricky level which I abandoned, decided to follow down the other path, but I know that level is still going to be there when I'm feeling smarter. I'm a big fan of that design, creates a good sense of exploration and means I'm not forced to bang my head endlessly against the same puzzle to make progress. I can't say much about the story as you are thrown into this underground clockwork world with nothing explained, being either guided or taunted by two unseen narrators (fans of Conker's Bad Fur Day may be able to hear some similarities in voice acting). I'm gonna guess more pieces of the story will be revealed throughout the game, perhaps it will all make sense by the end. What really stands out to me about this game is the insane amount of polish that has clearly gone into it, no aspect feels cheap or rushed. The art really is top-notch - very crisp pre-rendered sprites give it a unique look for a modern game, and lots of tiny details look great up close. If anything, the detail can be a little overwhelming and it's a puzzle in itself to decipher how the level flows and what can be interacted with. Speaking of, the way you interact with the game is all very tactile and it's evident it was designed with touch controls in mind. The minor quibble I have with it is placing objects by sliding tabs and pressing buttons can be a little cumbersome when in a rush. Waking up Rusty at the start of a level by giving him a scratch is a novelty at first, but does get a bit tedious when restarting levels often and you just want to jump back in. All in all this is a great chill-out game at a great price (almost too cheap), I look forward to chipping away at it one puzzle at a time. The truly impressive feat is that something of this quality is made by a two-person team, hats off to Gory Detail.

underrated game!!

Best indie game I've ever played. The visuals are phenomenal, the soundtrack fits perfectly, the game play is unique and enjoyable, and overall is such a creative game that I'm glad to have played. The game is pretty difficult, but that's honestly a good thing. I feel like solving the puzzles requires thinking outside the box and it really feels accomplishing to complete. Trial and Error is a very common process in this game but they execute it so well that it doesn't really get repetitive. I haven't completed the game yet but the more I play, the more I want to. If you are thinking about buying this game, my advice to you is to do it. Best decision you could ever make.

This game is way better than Conker. LIke, Chris Seavor went from being a funny dude who worked on video games to being a really good game designer.