Doughlings: Arcade – Review
We don’t know about you guys, but we must admit that, as a little kid, we actually used to love Arkanoid games. It’s been a long time since then, but while playing Doughlings: Arcade, the joy of this simple kind of game, only using your computer mouse, came back to us immediately. While it’s OK to be nostalgic sometimes, Doughlings: Arcade takes the genre to the twenty-first century, and we must say, we liked what we saw.
Story
The doughlings live in a dimension far, far away. All was fine, and they lead happy lives, until a meteor fell from the sky and released a poisonous gas. Every doughling who breaths in the toxic, becomes wild, before turning into stone. It’s clear a solution has to be found fast, before the doughlings go extinct. Luckily, Dr. Morpheus found a cure that can save his people. The only problem is that he’s under attack by his own diseased kin.
You’ll be playing as Dr. Morpheus, trying to heal all doughlings before they turn into stone. While the story we just told you is quite an interesting one, it’s just an introduction to give the game some kind of purpose. You won’t unlock any more story content during your playthrough, other than what you’re being given at the start. While that might hold you back a little, we actually found it fun to see that the game had any story at all, as it’s basically nothing more than an arcade game.
Graphics
The game looks mostly just colorful and fun. The doughlings you’re trying to cure all have a specific color, which indicates how many times you have to hit them before the cure actually works and they fly away happily. This means that there is definitely no lack of color at any time. The one thing that the creators could have paid more attention to are the backdrops in each level. They often are the same for several levels in a row, which can make it quite dull once you start to notice. Nonetheless, you’ll have your hands full focusing on the doughlings you’re saving, so you won’t have that much time left looking at the backdrops.
Sound
While playing, there is constant background music. Depending on the level you’re in, it sounds more happy or more dark. While the same music is looped all the time, it isn’t too noticeable, so it didn’t really bother us too much. The doughlings themselves make noises, which is actually quite fun, as it really brings life to the game. There is a moderator as well, who comments every time you start, finish or fail a level. While this definitely adds to the fun, it gets a bit annoying after a while, as he doesn’t have many different phrases, thus constantly repeats himself.
Gameplay
As the name already suggests, Doughlings: Arcade is an arcade game. As the story tells you in the beginning, your goal is to cure all doughlings from the disease the toxic gas is causing, but what it comes down to is just that you finish every level. With each level you finish, the next one will unlock, and as there are seventy-five levels, and a few others besides that, you’ll be able to play for quite some time before finishing the entire game.
What you have to do in each level, is to hit every doughling, much like you would in an Arkanoid game, and by doing that, make sure that they are happy again and fly away. The doughlings hang in the air above you, and slowly but surely come down at you, so you’ll have to make sure to hit them as fast and effectively as you can. It might be hard at times, but luckily there are some helpful upgrades available. The more levels you unlock, the more upgrades you can unlock. These upgrades mean that your character Dr. Morpheus can change into another character for a short period of time, such as Smash, Gunner or Robo. Each of these characters has their own abilities, which make it easier for you to make the doughlings better fast. Each character can in turn be upgraded as well, if you earn enough to pay for it during the levels. Besides this, you can also do a ‘show off’ with each character, which will grant it even better abilities for a short period of time.
The game in itself is quite simple, and in se, all levels are pretty much alike. We don’t suggest to play the game in one go, as it might indeed get a bit boring, but overall, the developers did a great job keeping the fun in such a seemingly simple game. Yes, your goal in each level is always the same, but the further you progress, the more challenging it gets. Next to the doughlings you have to cure, there will also be ghosts, bombs, meteors etc. to add an extra challenge to the mix. Next to that, you’ll have to be very careful what character you transform to, as not every character is suitable in every situation.
If playing through the seventy-five levels isn’t enough to satisfy you, there is also a level editor, in which you can make your own levels, or play the levels other players made. It’s a fun addition to the game, which really adds a lot of replay value and makes sure that you don’t have to play the same level twice if you don’t want to.
Conclusion
Doughlings: Arcade is a simple arcade game, yet it looks fun with its bright colors, and the gameplay itself is quite enjoyable as well, as there are quite some features added to keep things interesting. Simple, easy to learn, fun graphics, and even some kind of a story behind it: this arcade game has everything it needs, and even a bit more. We liked it, we hope you will too.
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