Snail Bob 2: Tiny Troubles Review

What do you call a homeless snail? A Slug! Bob has no issues with homelessness however and you will learn this in the very first stage of the game as you help him vacuum and do his laundry. It does beg the question as to how a snail managed to navigate the complex world of mortgages and home ownership, but sometimes in gaming you just have to suspend disbelief a little.

Because a snail doing the vacuuming isn't weird at all right?

 As a family friendly game, Snail Bob 2: Tiny Troubles isn't designed to be too complex. Bob moves forwards permanently and you can either stop him by clicking on or make him change direction by clicking an onscreen button. The aim is to get him to the exit of each screen by avoiding obstacles. Usually this is done by pressing buttons and pulling levers to get Bob safely through the level. Puzzles are seldom overly complicated, so you won't find many real head-scratchers. This is certainly a title aimed more towards the younger player than those of us with grey hair starting to show.

In a format tried and tested by many mobile games before it, Snail Bob 2 is split into a number of stages and players are awarded a number of stars for completion. These stars are not awarded for beating the level with more points or in a quicker time though, there are simply three stars in the background of each level and you have to click on them. I felt this was a shame because it means that "three-starring" a level doesn't feel like as much of an achievement as it does in games like Angry Birds.

Generally, the game moves at a relatively sedate pace, which isn't a surprise for a game starring an anthropomorphic gastropod. Occasionally though, that pace is broken by ghosts or wasps popping out of nowhere to suddenly kill you. Not that they actually kill you of course, that wouldn't do for a game aimed at kids. Instead they simply rough Bob up a little bit and steal his hat. Either way though, the pacing is sometimes a little sporadic. Once you know that something is about to pop out at you though, the game returns to easy mode. As you progress, some interesting elements are added such as the ability to become a mosquito and fly through some levels, but don’t expect any controller snapping moments.

In terms of presentation, the cartoon visuals fit the game really well. It's colourful and bold, with some nice attention to detail and a fair few little references to other games or pop culture hidden in the background. The sound effects are nice if a little minimal and the music is the kind of cute little ditty that you would have heard in the background to an 8-bit platformer. It isn't something that you’ll be rushing to include on your next mixtape, but I never found myself muting it and putting music on instead.

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Overall, although it’s more aimed at the younger crowd, It's still a solid little time-wasting game for the more wisened of us and I did enjoy it. I was playing the Steam version but it is also available on iPad, with Android & Mac versions to follow shortly. Personally, I think I would have been happier with a mobile version, the controls do seem to be more suited to a touchscreen than a mouse. As each level of the game can generally be completed in a minute or two at most, it also seems like the kind of game that would be best played to kill time while on the loo. It’s certainly not a massive epic adventure; in fact I fully completed it within four hours with a couple of breaks to make tea. The fact that I did complete it fully though, probably says something.

Score 7/10