Wuppo

Review

Who would have believed that eating ice cream could earn you an eviction notice? Well, to be fair with Carlo, the Wum at the Wum House service desk, it’s not fun at all cleaning ice cream off the beautiful rugs at the entrance and on the fourth level. Especially now, when all the cleaners have run away to Popocity. It’s only part of the reason; the real reason is that Carlo dislikes cleaning (I’m with you, Carlo), but throwing a Wum out of the Wum House for this, it’s a tad extreme. Hey Wuppo! Did you hear what I say? You have to find a new place to live. Well, start cracking!

Wuppo is a platformer/adventure game with good puzzles where you control a cute, round character who has four legs and can make great double jumps. He is part of the Wum race, who are the most intelligent of four main species in the world, but lack of abilities.  The other three races are the Blussers, Splenkhakkers and the nasty Fnakkers.

You’ll meet a bird, “Denksnavel,” fairly quickly in the game. This bird will give you hints every time you select him. The Allesweters is another character who you will be talking a fair bit with and can be found in different locations. He has a projector and can play the filmstrips collectable items you’ll find within the world. 

The world is extremely well-designed with great locations to discover, and it’s not hard to navigate. Within the main places, you’ll have to help other Wums or species to move forward in the game. Some will be challenging puzzles and others will lead to a fight with big, scary monsters! Please don’t scare the kawum out of me! When you successfully help these characters and make them happy, you’ll be rewarded with extra health points and items which in turn will help you to resolve the next puzzle or challenges in the world. There is a fair bit of reading in this game and you really need to take your time to go through it or you will miss important information. Bear in mind that you can come back to individuals and re-asked questions. The dialogue is really fun and you can select different answers when you interact with each creature.  

In some of the destinations, you’ll find stores where you can buy or sell items using the smurt currency. You can obtain additional smurts either by helping other individuals, or when you kill enemies.

For me the game shines in the puzzles. However, you’ll be fighting interesting bosses and some are not that easy to eliminate. Oh, by the way, you’ll be armed with a GumGumGun which shoots coloured gums. There is a place where you can upgrade your weapons at a specific store in Popocity.

Splendid artwork and the soundtrack is very cute. For the controls, whether you use the mouse and keyboard or the gamepad, they work fine and it is very easy to allocate binding keys to your inventory.