Nerdy Dwarf

Nerdy Dwarf is a very neat little puzzle game in which you have to help a pixel dwarf escape from the dungeon he is trapped in. There are just over 20 levels to complete and boy will you have your work cut out out for you.

Nerdy Dwarf rocks some really cute pixel graphics and in all honesty, the dwarf looks a bit like a bearded Hell Boy who’s all smiles and no worries. The goal of each round is to make it to the exit after completing a series of small but fairly complex tasks.

Initially you will have to dig your way through a fixed number of patches using shovels that you collect in the same level. As you progress further into the game, the dirt patches and shovels are replaced with doors and keys and so on. Controls are also easy to master because all you’ll have are the direction keys and two ways of undoing moves. You’ll be using the latter buttons a lot.

Nerdy Dwarf is a pixel art wrapped fusion between Snake and Sokoban. These two dictate the rules. When you move about in each level, the little dwarf leaves a trail behind him which you can’t cut or walk twice over it, just like in Snake you couldn’t eat your own tail, the difference here is that if you hit the trail, it’s not game over.

To complete a level you will have to dig every dirt patch or open every door just like in Sokoban you had to place every box over the marked tiles. These two gameplay features, when combined, make Nerdy Dwarf quite the brain tease and that’s just great and a bit frustrating at times but hey, if you don’t struggle a bit you won’t feel like a bit of a brainiac when you finish the game.

Nerdy Dwarf is a really light game that offers just about everything it should for it to be really good. It looks nice, the soundtrack is ok (it could be a bit more lively), gameplay mechanics are easy to pick up and the puzzles scale in difficulty quite well. It's definitely worth your time and eventual migraines.