Boogie Bunnies Casual Game for Xbox Live Arcade
A Review of Artech Studios' Adorably Addictive Puzzler
May 3, 2009
The landscape of casual and puzzle gaming is much more varied than it was when Tetris first arrived in 1985. Casual games have been increasing in popularity for some time now, thanks largely to the multitude of such games available for download on cell phones, game consoles, and online gaming sites.
With so many out there, it seems that it would be easy for a game as basic as Artech Studios’ Boogie Bunnies, available for both PC and on the Xbox Live Arcade, to get lost in the crowd. Fortunately, though its mechanics may be simple, Boogie Bunnies has enough personality to stand out.
A Basic Puzzler With a Cute Twist
The plot (if it can be called that) surrounds a troupe of colorful dancing rabbits, the titular Boogie Bunnies, that has entered into a dancing competition with the opportunity to perform in Hollywood. In each level, the player has an overhead view of several rows of multicolored Boogie Bunnies and must decrease their ranks by grouping them by color in lines and clusters of three.
The bunnies step forward and add another row to the rear either every few seconds or with every three turns the player takes, depending on the mode of gameplay. If too many bunnies fall into the creek or gutter at the front of the screen, the game ends. Matching various colors leads to different results—red bunnies eliminate all surrounding bunnies while purple bunnies will take out entire rows.
Pretty simple concept so far, but there’s a cute twist—if the player eliminates a cluster of aqua-colored bunnies, the whole troupe will start dancing (sometimes while rapping or singing), and matching the bunnies while they dance results in point multipliers. Also, it’s just fun to watch them get down.
Adorable and Addictive
Of course, as the levels increase, the game steadily grows more difficult and matching the bunnies gets harder and harder. Adding to both the difficulty and the cuteness factor, the bunnies begin wearing costumes from the second stage onward, which makes it harder to determine their colors at first glance.
This isn’t the most innovative puzzler to hit the casual gaming world, but its simplicity and cuteness combine to make it highly addictive. Boogie Bunnies is the sort of game a player downloads with the intention of taking a quick break from homework or household chores, only to realize ten levels later that two hours have gone by. It’s fun and sweet without being too easy or saccharine.
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