Toodles & Toddlers

[h1]Toodles & Toddlers is your child’s fear induced fever dream.[/h1] [hr][/hr] [b]In summary, I recommend Toodles & Toddlers[/b]. The game accurately fits into the survival horror genre while carrying this playful-like atmosphere that keeps you engaged with it. This game has a combination of experimentation, combat, and sense of progress that are altogether entertaining - and all the countless “[i]what the…[/i]” moments really tie it up into an unforgettable experience. [h2]Introduction[/h2] In Toodles & Toddlers [i](T&T)[/i], you have one goal: [b]defeat Toodles[/b], the resident clown behemoth that’s terrorizing this playspace. The game is advertised as and is essentially a long survival puzzle; you have a nearly infinite amount of subtasks required before you can simply defeat him and [i]escape[/i]. The game emphasizes how important it is to [i]experiment[/i], as in you should be ready to try all the strange combinations the Developer has mapped out for you until you ultimately find the piece that fits [i]the best[/i]. The core gameplay mechanic is that [b]collisions[/b] cause [b]transformations[/b]. Most of the positive collisions are typically with spherical objects, and what they collide with depends on what the end result is. For example, one of the earlier lines in the game tells you to throw a red ball at a villager, which will cause their head to fall off… which, is true. There are several dozen different effects this red ball has on other objects around the playspace. In contrast, there is also a blue ball you’re introduced to at the beginning that has similar effects on some objects, but vastly different ones on others. These are just two of the several balls you’re going to be using for your experimentation. As far as controls go, the same follows simple WASD movement with the spacebar being a jump button. You pick up items (unless they’re either heavy or alive) with your right mouse button and throw them with the left. You have four resources to manage, which is food, milk (water), fear, and your health. Food and milk naturally drain and you need to consume something to keep them from emptying. Fear generates as you encounter enemies in the playspace. If fear gets full, or if food or milk gets too low, you’ll begin to take damage and all these resources can be healed with the consumables found around the map. The map itself is incredibly large and has an invisible wall at the playspace’s edge to stop you from wandering off too far. After finding the edge, it took me about 40 minutes to go from corner-to-corner in what I could only assume is a square-shaped map. On the way to the playspace’s edge… well, things get… shocking. We’ve talked about the Toodles portion of the game title, and if it wasn’t apparent by the Steam trailer or any other media you might have read, toddlers are also present in the game. [b]If you have a problem with simulated violence against virtual toddlers, this game probably isn’t for you.[/b] They just explode, sometimes. It’s not all that graphic in my opinion. If that tidbit doesn’t bother you at all, then the rest of the game doesn’t really get all-that-much-more grotesque than that. Otherwise, there’s various other characters around the playspace - some neutral, some friendly, and some antagonistic. I think that’s about all the foundation we need, so let’s talk about what I liked about this game. [h2]The Good[/h2] To start, T&T is definitely a unique experience. I don’t think I’ve really experienced [i]that[/i] many games in total, but I feel like in however many years I’ll be around, I’m overly confident that I will never experience anything like it again short of anything other than a copycat release. I had a lot of eager excitement trying to see what happened [b]if[/b] I did [b]this[/b] to the [b]somethings[/b] of the game. There’s small combinations everywhere that I’m not even sure are a part of the overall puzzle experience that I haven’t gotten to try, and at nearly five hours of gameplay I’m sure I haven’t even experienced half of what the game has to offer. Another thing I enjoyed is the overall art direction - I have no clue where some of these models came from. Some of them are so unnerving that I have a hard time believing they came from anywhere else other than the mind of [i]UglyBaby Games[/i]. But overall, everything fits great - there’s a lot of care in the world design as you adventure around the playspace. Music isn’t exactly rife in T&T, but when it shows up it’s pretty [i]impactful[/i] and occasionally shocking. It’s unfortunate that Toodles gets a whole song to himself since I just spend all my time running away from him. Lastly, the game successfully blends humor with horror together in a way that I haven’t actually seen in games yet. While some imagery in T&T would be considered grotesque, the game tries really hard to remind you that it’s just [i]a wild ride[/i]. This point kind of coat-tails the former ‘unique experience’ point, but the game is both [b]fun[/b] and [b]funny[/b] in its own fear-inducing way, and the former point doesn’t entirely demonstrate that. If you aren’t someone who is easily disturbed, definitely consider giving the game a try. It should go without saying that the game isn’t perfect, so let’s talk about some of its pain points. [h2]The Ungood[/h2] Early on, if you’re like me, you may find yourself running away from enemies for a [i]long[/i] period of time. I’d actually probably spent about an hour of my gameplay in total doing some form of escape from another enemy because your speeds are pretty similar to theirs. From what I encountered, no enemy runs faster than you, but some do run [i]very close[/i] to the same speed as you, so if there’s no objects to get them tripped up on, or an ally you can sacrifice, you may have to run for a little while… and that’s how I ended up in the outer playspace. Next up, this game naturally has a hardcore mode. The save system is more of a [i]bookmarking[/i] system, which means once you load a save, it’s consumed and the slot is empty. There’s only one save slot in total. So somewhere along the lines if you accidentally fall victim to [i]results of random experiment #51[/i], you’ll have to start over from the beginning. It was a tough lesson for me to learn but seems intentional, so I wanted to point it out. [i]On the flip side[/i] I think this game has a pretty cool amount of speed running potential, if that counts for anything. Lastly, the toughest part of the experience for me were the collisions. Time after time, I’d throw a ball at a toddler and it [i]seemed[/i] like it should hit. Hell, it even shifted the model a hundred pixels or so, but the game didn’t qualify it as a [i]direct hit[/i]. This happened to me more than you may expect and was probably the biggest point of frustration for me. This really didn’t discourage me from enjoying the game, though, it was just one of several ‘I cannot believe this’ moments, and most other in-game models didn’t seem to have this problem with collision. [h2]The End[/h2] Alright, that’s about all the text space we have character count for. I liked the game a lot and it was some of the most exciting, experimental fun I’ve had in a good while. I could see a problem down the line with people hitting the brick wall of progress. With so little to go off of since there are very little community contributions at the time of this post, many players may not be able to bridge the gap. But give it a try, I’d say the experience alone doesn’t warrant the game requiring completion to be enjoyed. [quote][i]This is almost completely unrelated, but this review is accompanied by a 35-minute gameplay video. If you’d rather not spoil yourself on the experimentation, don’t watch it, but this is a condensed summary of the 4.8 hours of gameplay I experienced:[/i][/quote] https://youtu.be/oZRfB8h7EfA

Hey you! Yea, you! Developer person. I know you are reading this. What have you done? Dear god what have you done? What is this? Is this high art? Is this your way of getting back at the world? My brain is broken. Is this game terrible? Is it genius? They've somehow melded into the same concept for me now. I threw a ball at a bug, the bug rolled into another ball. I threw the bug ball at the clown titan, the bug ball turned into a teethy testicle. The clown titan stomped on the toothticle and it burst into a gigantic headcrab and killed me. This is amazing, it has so much thought put into it. But it's so stupid. You have created the Broly of video games. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgHekOSQe_A&ab_channel=IAmPattyJack

Great game for high skilled gamerg0ds like myself. A must try for all aspiring esport stars.

This has to be the most bizarre game I have ever played! https://youtu.be/MrxHagUgQdc Strange, confusing, creepy and I have no idea how I feel about it.

Try not to get smashed to bits by evil toys by combining stuff together and make friendly things to stop them. Great survival horror strategy horror using crafting and resources. Did you kill my bat? https://youtu.be/8h-KONePeRk

The latest patch provides previously lacking directions, and collecting resources to improve units adds a pseudo-RTS element. Gameplay now makes a bit more sense, if that's possible for this insane game. If you're familiar with Adult Swim then this shares a similar vibe to some of those shows.

TL;DR: Too ambituous for what it is. What is this? Is a survival-exploration-horror-boss slayer with armies game, if it sounds like a mouthful, its because it is. you are a baby (presumebly) who has to fight a giant clown man and teddy bears with ball which you craft (how you do it? a mistery since i dont see a crafting button). The game keeps telling you every minute thing you need to know because there is NO WAY you figure out yourself, and even then you are lost You have 4 bars which 3 you gotta keep full and 1 empty, a lot of object you can pick up and seemesly do nothing, for me was too overwhelming and couldnt enjoy it. FOR THE DEV: Looks like there is effort into it, looks nice, but next time try to put a tutorial level or stick to a "simplier" gameplay, maybe telling me what is an enemy and a in-game demostration on how to do it rather than a burst of text?