In Super Sticky Bros players take the role of a small 3D cube with which they can jump, double jump, and push off of walls. Levels are played out vertically, so the goal is always to move upwards and reach the next area. As you do so, though, each level becomes more difficult, and new obstructions are introduced, including rectangular-shaped enemies, spikes, and rockets. It’s essentially a puzzle as to how to evade these things and reach the safety of the next level. If you hit the side of an enemy, are blown up by a rocket, or misjudge a jump and land on a spike, where you die is replaced with a white cross and you begin the level again.
While the aim is to complete every level, along the way you’re also tasked with collecting coins: these can be found at the start of every level and by jumping on your enemies’ heads. Once you collect a certain number of coins you can unlock a new skin for your character, ranging from a skull to a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. Every purchase has a random outcome, unless you pay £0.99 to unlock your outfit of choice. As well as new skins, every certain amount of levels you complete you’re awarded with a new background on which to play the game: the matrix-style scene is perhaps the most interesting and mind-altering of them all.
Your character is easy to control in Super Stick Bros, as two huge ‘left’ and ‘right’ buttons and a square ‘jump’ button are laid out on the bottom half of the screen. The levels themselves, though short, are well-designed, interesting, and fiendishly difficult at times; that they all merge into each other makes the whole game feel fluid, and it’s an interesting idea. Most of the skins and scenes are genuinely funny to use and play with, and act as extra motivation on top of what is already a rewardingly-challenging game. Overall Super Sticky Bros is enjoyable.[sc name=”quote” text=”Most of the skins and scenes are genuinely funny to use and play with, and act as extra motivation on top of what is already a rewardingly-challenging game.”]
The problem is that it’s unoriginal: just one go and it becomes apparent that it’s taken the exact same mechanics as Super Meat Boy but turned it into a much simpler version. Then there’s the main character itself: though you can change skin, your initial one is a bright-red cube with huge eyes, a big grin revealing its teeth – almost identical to the meat boy after which its inspiration is named. Even when you die, your cubed-self splits off into tiny pieces, in the same way that Super Meat Boy explodes with blood and gore. These aren’t just similarities: Super Sticky Bros is a clone, and for that it loses all credibility – no matter how fun the game it is.
It’s a shame that developers feel as though they have to go down the route of taking an already-proven idea and copying it. It’s a problem in the app industry most probably because people are naive enough to believe that there’s some connection to the original game when there’s not. If they invested more time in creating original content then perhaps we’d have better games to play.
