Quick Review: Morphopolis

I sure am playing a lot of puzzle games through these short reviews, huh? Well, puzzle game rarely overstay their welcome, so most of them are fairly short. That’s the most likely reason. Anyway, here’s one that combines its concept with item search games.

Beginning my growth.

Morphopolis is a creation of Dan Walters and Ceri Williams, and was published to Steam by the former on August 14th, 2014. It’s a unique, animated look at the world of the very small: Insects, mostly. You begin as small as an aphid grub, and through gathering foods, exploring the environment, and solving puzzles around, the tiny bug grows, takes over larger bugs in order to become something new. The first level serves as a tutorial. Most of the gameplay involves traveling around the small open area, opening item search quests by clicking on other insects, and then clicking to collect the requested items on the sidebar on the left. Once all required units of an item have been collected, you can click the insect in the area involved with that quest in order to progress the plot. Gathering enough food allows the aphid grub to build its cocoon, until it’s fully covered. Each level includes at least one additional puzzle to break the monotony.

I'm just a tiny bug in a world of giants.

Ought to link the colors together!

Later levels are split over multiple screens. It’s all fine and good, it allows for larger puzzles and sectors to look for items in. Only problem is, you can’t just switch to a different screen instantly – your protagonist insect has to painstakingly make its way there, slowly. If you’re good at finding items, most of the time will be wasted crawling around from a screen to the other. And of course, once you’ve collected all of the items related to an NPC bug in the area, you have to crawl back to the screen that bug is on, in order to activate that bug’s effect. I get the idea, but it’s on the tedious side.

Oh Gawd that's a big bug on the left.
I must take control of it.

I am growing bigger...
But this world is still so much bigger than me.

The other puzzles are also pretty simple – one involves placing the particles on a flower based on their shape, one is a simple matching game with bugs having dots on their backs… Yes, simple indeed. The game goes on for five levels, and it’s a treat to view. It’s not super-difficult. And by item search standards, you have access to a hint system that takes some time to refill after you’ve used one. It won’t activate if you use it on a screen where there’s nothing to find at the moment.

It’s pretty fun. At 4$, it’s a recommendation.