Puzzle games are certainly not short on supply when it comes to the Nintendo DS, however that hasn’t stopped Oxygen Games from releasing their latest game Hurry Up Hedgehog, but does this game stand out from the crowd?
Hurry up Hedgehog is based on a popular board game called Igel Argern (no I haven’t heard of it either), the aim of the game is basically to get three of your hedgehogs to the other side of the board before anyone else does. Moving consists of three parts, first of all a lane will be selected (this is called the active path) in which a hedgehog will move forward, then you have the option of moving a hedgehog from your own team either sideways or forwards, once this is done you then have the option of moving a hedgehog from any team forward one space on the active path.
Moving hedgehogs sideways is optional, however you can only move your own hedgehogs in this way, additionally you must always move a hedgehog forward if there is one in the row that can move in this way, although it doesn’t have to be one of your own. Ok so that’s the rules out of the way, any the wiser? Well you see this is one of the problems with this game, it’s confusing, however after a while once you start to figure out what you are actually meant to do, it does become quite fun and challenging.
The developer has also included rules customization just to keep you on your toes, before the game begins you are able to customize your gameplay in quite a few ways, first up is shunting or stacking, when turned on the former moves the hedgehog next to the one being moved one square, either sideways or forwards, while the latter allows for multiple hedgehogs to frequent one square. You are also able to turn on the tube option, which allows for hedgehogs to move off the board completely and onto the square on the opposite side, not only that but if you turn on doping then the hedgehog to finish will be disqualified, which I found quite amusing I have to say.
During the game you will notice that some paths have pits, when a hedgehog enters one of these he will then be unable to move until all of the other hedgehogs on the board have drawn level, which obviously gives you some incentive for avoiding these.
As far as presentation goes, Hurry up Hedgehog is quite a basic affair, it is presented as a top down boardgame on the bottom screen while your hedgehog will dance along merrily on the top screen, well if you are winning anyway, graphically it is certainly nothing special but then it doesn’t need to be due to the nature of game that it is.
The game also includes a multiplayer option, this allows for up to 5 players to play on a single DS or up to 6 with multiple DS consoles, although you would all need a copy of the game to be able to play in this way, perhaps it would have been better to allow game sharing between the DS consoles as I don’t really see six people who know each other all owning this game, though I could be wrong I guess.
While Hurry up Hedgehog may not be for everyone, it is quite an addictive game once you get used to it, another benefit to the game is that like Tetris it is very easy to pick up and play. Overall it’s not a bad attempt and offers something slightly different from most DS games but whether that is enough for people to go out and buy it I am not so sure.
