Super Pig is a relatively new platformer with a unique twist – only your spilt blood will allow you to see the platforms and various dangers! Think of it as fog-of-war, except instead of moving around and more area of the map being visible, you must die in various areas to prove safety for your other pig’s lives. Much like many of the early platformers and RPGs you must rescue your girl from danger! This is a unique platformer that I haven’t seen before and that made it a fun experience that allowed you to wonder what was going to happen next. If you love platformer games, but want to spice it up a bit then take a gander at Super Pig, a game that challenge you to play a platformer like none other.

Super Pig

The developer proclaims that this is the hardest game of 2012 so far, boasting stats of rage-quits in the game and number of deaths in each level. This all makes up for a very intimidating atmosphere, but once you begin playing the game it doesn’t necessarily live up to be the most challenging game of 2012, but it is up there. Mainly the game is just based on shear luck (on whether you can make it to the end in only one or two lives) and most of the time you just have to kill Super Pig repeatably until you carve a nice path to Super Pig’s girl. If anything, this is basically a memory game. You can spend most of your lives trying to light up the screen and then dedicate your last couple to finding your way. Once you’ve lost enough lives you likely have the experience necessary to know exactly how to beat the level and hitting the retry button and completing the level becomes extremely easy.

The gameplay was what I thought to be the biggest plus. The game took the platformer genre and then turned it upside-down. Instead of trying to survive and save all of your lives, you’ll want to die occasional to light the way for your future lives. This is an interesting concept and is definitely something that I haven’t seen done before. What I didn’t like about the game though is that it was more memory based than anything else. It wasn’t necessarily skilled based, or reaction-based, but simply you had to know where you were going. This made most of the levels extremely repetitive and slow, as you found yourself dying at every corner. Of course this is how the game is meant to be played, but maybe some additional features, like some sort of flashlight or emitter could be a power-up where you could see the area around you briefly, just to make the game rely a little more on skill instead of shear luck and memory.

Super Pig

The art was something that, while it didn’t necessarily need to be done extremely well, was still done effectively and attractively. What really caught my eye when I first started to play the game was that when the pig died that blood flew everywhere. It was a really neat animation and when it landed on a surface it kind of splattered again and created a neat texture on the spikes and platforms. Lastly, the characters were nicely done, but I couldn’t help feeling that the pigs looked a little weird. I can see why they would be scrunched up, but to some degree it looks a little too scrunched and the tail on Super Pig looked way too high. Besides those two things, the rest of the artwork was really great and I loved the simple style.

The game featured a really neat soundtrack. It seemed to fit the arcade style very well and the fast-paced movement of the game. The splatter sound effect was also pretty good and worked with the music well, not blaring over, or being too quiet to hear. Overall, the music was very good and fit with the game perfectly.

Overall, Super Pig is a very unique platformer. Anyone that wants to try out a new platformer with a twist will want to play Super Pig. In review, the game isn’t too challenging, but the difficulty is more based on memory than anything else. The gameplay is unique and is something that I haven’t seen before. It was a very good idea, but I thought that the execution could be more skill based. The artwork was really simply, but it worked really well and I enjoyed it. I did think, however, that the game looked better without the static. Finally, the music was really good and worked perfectly with the game. All in all, Super Pig is a game that you have to play at least once, as it offers a unique experience that few games deliver. Be sure to play Super Pig today on Kongregate!