Ammo Pigs ($0.99) is a game that figures that it just needs to do one thing and one thing only, and get that right. From Cascadia Games, it’s an homage to the DOS era of gaming and its action-platformers. You control a pig with a gun who must shoot his way through a dozen levels full of sentient butcher knives, spikes, walking guns, and various robots out for your bacon. If you played 2-Bit Cowboy ($0.99) you may recall that game had a level-based structure that still had some aspects of open-world games. This game uses a bit more of a compromise in level design, as the levels have open-world elements where you have to backtrack to hit switches, with some hidden things to find. Still, they feel a bit smaller and more straightforward, but not in a bad way, but in a way that feels more focused.
The levels are about getting from point A to point B in one piece, but the mission structure does a good job at encouraging players to go out and complete optional objectives, though mostly they consist of “collect items" or “kill all of a certain type of enemy." You get cash for completing objectives, with said cash being used at vending machines to buy more health, ammo (which is limited, technically, but available commonly as item pickups), and rockets, which are naturally more powerful. The game doesn’t really do anything unexpected with its structure, it just throws a dozen levels of enemy-shooting, wall-jumping, and spike-dodging at you.
The game uses virtual arrows and buttons to control the game, with the buttons being smartly laid out. Jumping is in the lower-right corner, firing horizontally and vertically on the left side, with the use button popping up at times. They’re sensibly laid out, and while double-jumping happens accidentally on a periodic basis, I never felt like I fired accidentally in the wrong direction. The movement arrows feel way too small on the iPhone 6 Plus, though. MFi gamepad support is here and works great.
My issue with the movement is that if you double jump, you can only fire downward. I think that I’d rather have the ability to just fire straight and upward as I can while on the ground, or after a single jump, though being able to fire downward is kind of helpful at times. It’s a mixed bag, but a bit annoying when it doesn’t work quite the way you want it to. I suppose not having up/down arrows for movement requires that some sort of system like this to be in place. It’s an odd rule.
The big, honking problem with Ammo Pigs is that what it establishes in the very first level isn’t really expanded on in any significant way. Many of the same enemies appear, the game’s still about hitting those blue switches, and even the music track is the same from level to level. Some new hazards pop up from time to time, and the game does get more challenging as it goes on, but the game really kind of lacks anything resembling variety. It’s quite repetitive after only a few levels. The formula isn’t terrible, I suppose, but a little goes a long way here.
I also have to complain about the checkpointing or lack thereof in this game. I know that it is trying to be very old-school, but I think it goes to a ridiculous degree when there’s obvious checkpointing situations with the blue gates you disable. But when there’s enemies and lasers that can kill you in one hit, and the occasional exploding barrel that can kill you randomly. I’ve heard this concept of retro-style design being something where designers should try to make games feel like how they remember them, rather than how they actually were. Standards have changed, and we have checkpoints because we know that games don’t have to be impossible any more. They can be accessible because we can buy them for two dollars now! As such, I don’t think checkpoints would hurt. Also, I know that “ammo" is part of the name of the game, but the limited ammo system feels like it’s only there to prevent haphazard firing, rather than being anything resembling something you have to seriously worry about.
I think that Ammo Pigs is ultimately formulaic, for better or worse. You know what you’re getting right away, and it may be best consumed over a long amount of time, as the game gets stale after completing 2 or 3 levels in a row. Come in, play a level, and come back a while later when the game feels fresh again. It’s a game that’s limited in scope, but it’s far from evil or terrible for doing so, honestly. It’s really quite the honest game: it tells you what it is from the very get-go and doesn’t change much. I can appreciate that.
