Iggle Pop Deluxe Demo

One of the most difficult things to achieve in the video games industry nowadays is to come up with an original idea, because almost everything has been tried over the years. On the other hand, variations on a theme can be profitable as well, which is why remakes and clones do so well for themselves. Hence, as long as the gameplay is fun and addictive, it seems like it doesn’t really matter where the idea came from.

Iggle Pop Deluxe is an arcade game in which your goal is to collect a couple of creatures called Iggles and transport them to a portal, from where they can get home safely. However, these Iggles come in a variety of different colors, which means that you must also take them to the portal that shares their color. Not only that, but you must also pay attention to the monsters that try to stop you along the way.

The game looks and plays a lot like a combination between Snake and Pac-Man, because it borrows concepts from both of them. Hence, the Iggles follow you in a straight line, and you get longer and longer the more of them you happen to collect. Just like in Pac-man, the enemies wander around randomly on the map, and they can kill your character if you happen to touch them.

Although you die if an enemy touches you directly, the Iggles just get left behind if they get touched. Not only that, but they also begin to roam the mazes up and down after a while, which makes it that much more difficult to track them down. However, it’s quite simple to avoid the enemies, at least in the beginning. After a while, everything about the game gets more difficult and a lot more frustrating.

Visually, the level tileset changes whenever you manage to complete a few stages, and the mazes are usually quite detailed. The characters are nice as well, although you shouldn’t expect to make any memories in this regard. You can distract yourself with the soundtrack for a bit, but the tunes get repetitive in a rush, especially if you play for too long.

When it’s all said and done, Iggle Pop Deluxe may not be a major breakthrough in the industry, but it is certainly addictive and quite fun. On the other hand, it is also repetitive and frustrating later on, so it might lose its charm after a few levels.