by FEMAELSTROM, HSM team writer

We’ve all seen the kiosk in the Hub for that odd little game called ibb & obb. The two adorable characters are simply two bullet- or ghost-shaped creatures, one green and the other purple.

I recently bought this game, and let me tell you…buy it. Now. Grab a friend to play with you, start a game of co-op and see for yourself why it is an absolute blast.

For those who enjoyed the Hub kiosk: there are some free items to get there and some free items to obtain if one downloads the demo and plays it. The free items include clothing, such as shirts and dresses as well as socks. Upon downloading the demo, there are even companions of the two characters to follow you around.

I bought ibb & obb, as did my friend, MaeBell, with the sole intention of playing together to add some fun to our gaming aside from Home. And it has done just this, in it’s own great way. The controls are simple, and the artwork is fantastic — not greatly detailed, true, but stylized to look its own perfect way. Two people playing it should be able to play and have a lot of working to solve the puzzles.

These guys are just great to look at and have fun with.

The file is a about a gigabyte or so, and when it loaded and I took a look into it, it was a feast for the eyes. The game design is amazing, as the team that created the backgrounds made them fun and well illustrated. The graphics are simpler than other games, but that is definitely the effect they are aiming for. The graphics, for being simpler, are still very good and fun. There are many times that we will stop to simply look at the environments. This game is a side scrolling platformer, and there is no shooting or blowing things up. Just you and your companion running through the great locations and solving puzzles.

There are several game modes which include single player, local co-op, and “invite a friend”, which lets you pick a friend from your own friends list and play them, even from across the country.

A typical puzzle is a set of doors, one in each color of the characters. The purple obb will approach a gate colored in purple, so only obb can pass, as the same goes for the green ibb. Then they have to work together to make it to the communal white gate that both can pass, all while figuring out how two become more than one when it comes to jumping and solving the game’s many ingenious puzzles.

This game has so many of those “EUREKA” moments that they are countless. There have been so many times where we have been playing and one of us will come up with that one solution or that one move that lets us progress, and we both will shout in relieved joy. This game gives you that good feeling all over.

Gravity defying tricks abound.

The gameplay is really quite easy, not cluttered up by a lot of moves that can sometimes confuse the player. The moves are simple: move with the left stick, communicate through the right stick and jump with the “X” button. Learn these three and that (as of now) is the scope of the inputs. Note, however: the communication with the stick is unique. When moved, the stick simply draws a trail of clouds that is either green or purple, depending on which color you as the player are. There is in-game chat, so you can communicate with your friends as you puzzle your way through the well-crafted worlds, but the cloud animation is fun and can be interesting to attempt to communicate with your friend in terms of pointing and directing where they should go or what they should see onscreen.

There is one more element that is a ton of fun to play with. Gravity, the one law we cannot break. In this game there is some play with gravity and the effects it has on our adorable little characters. The simple thought is this, when one pops through the ground, one does not simply fall down, they land upside-down under the ground. Gravity winning again, and this time, its fun for all.

The game design is a real treat. There is no blood or gore, so it’s perfect for kids, and the backgrounds are so colorful and rendered to not be highly detailed, but it is the style that works well for this game that has such a cartoon look to it. The design of the two characters are perfectly simple too. They are simple bullet-shaped characters with ‘happy face’ eyes, and soon, work their way into your heart as cute characters that are easily playable and fun to simply watch, especially when you complete a level.

Makers of really great Home items and now this game.

ibb & obb is a new game in the Playstation Store and is created in part by our own friends at Codeglue, and to this I salute them as they have made a great game that is fun for all, and free from too much in game silliness and clutter that can sometimes bog a game down. The simplicity is the strong point as well as the two player co-op. This is where the game really excels, and it is genuinely worth the $9.99 price tag.

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