We love all sorts of games. Sometimes it is hard to cover a game in our traditional review style that’s why we have tidbit-style reviews. These shorter reviews cover games that deserve attention too but simply don’t fit our good, mixed, and bad template. In addition, they get a monthly summary article to give them even more reader attention!
Duck Side of the Moon | 83/100
Publisher: Starbrew Games
Developer: Starbrew Games
Do you tend to overwork and keep being hard on yourself for not achieving your goals yet, feeling like you’re always late, and no matter what you do, it’s not good enough? Our protagonist Doug is very anxious to get to a new homeworld, so much so that he crashes his ship due to falling asleep. When he lands, he must try to fix his ship so that he can continue his search for his homeworld.
When you start your journey to fix your ship, you’ll be meeting the people who live there. They are stone, peaceful, and charming creatures who’ll be aiding you in fixing your ship, but they’ll also require your help with various things, like baking a cake, writing and sending a love letter, collecting lost items, and getting their town’s power back, among other things. While you help them, you can find clothes and hats for customizing Doug, to give him some extra personality.
The gameplay is simple, as there aren’t a lot of mechanics here, and that’s intentional because you’re supposed to relax while playing. It mainly consists of jumping, flying in low gravity, and using your mining laser to collect ores for crafting upgrades. Eventually, you’ll unlock an explosive to destroy rock walls for rewards, and a gravity gadget mostly used to move rocks blocking some paths. You do have a few simple minigames like mining while riding a minecart, bowling, shooting ores on a shooting range, hitting a high striker at a carnival, and a few easy races to fly through rings.
The soundtrack captures the feeling of being in space in quite a soft and relaxing way, rarely getting a little more enthusiastic. There is a disco when you get to the second map; most of the town is all into it, with the exception of a rock group, which is in a cave. You get to “compose” your own music once by combining a few notes in order with three different sounds, which was pretty nice to do.
The game doesn’t disappoint in the graphics department as well. While they are simplistic, they are very charming as well, which complements the characters’ personalities and the message portrayed to the players nicely.
In the end, Doug ends up getting close to the inhabitants of this place, which ends up becoming his homeworld after all, with people he enjoys being around, helping, and having fun with.
Although I believe the price could’ve been a little cheaper, Duck Side of the Moon is quite an enjoyable short ride, where you’ll be relaxing your way through a 3- to 5-hour-long journey that reminds us all about not overworking ourselves, learning to take our time, and relaxing whenever necessary.
Hi there, I’m Colombo, I live in Brazil and I’ve been gaming since I was around 5 years old. Xbox became my main platform on the Xbox 360 era, before that I had played a bit on PC, Polystation (basically a skinned SNES), PlayStation 1 and 2. I really enjoy to experience immersive worlds, but I also enjoy playing silly games to have a laugh or just have fun.
