Lacks the story and internal logic I expected from Amanita – CHUCHEL Review

I adored Botanicula and enjoyed Amanita’s previous games for the colorful, imaginative, densely layered worlds, unusual characters and unbelievable levels of environmental interactivity. Each of their created universes has its own logic, and that logic holds up throughout each game. Perhaps I am being unfair and Amanita is a victim of my overly-high expectations, but I was not impressed with and did not much enjoy CHUCHEL. CHUCHEL lacks this intuitive aspect, this internal logic: it feels like a large part of the game involves touching the screen randomly until something happens, and eventually you figure out what needs to be done to progress to the next level. While there is some clever mimicry of other games in certain levels (one of the better levels requires winning mocked-up versions of Mario Brothers and Pac-man), I didn’t feel a sense of cohesion from level to level, which made the game lack narrative heft. Without a storyline or character that I really cared for, and without puzzles that had an internal logic, a lot of the game felt random, disjointed, and childish. And while one might try to force a deeper meaning onto it (the repeated efforts to retrieve one’s lost cherry as a quest to regain innocence?), overall it’s unfortunately just not an interesting, engaging game. Like many of the other reviewers I feel bad leaving a less-than-enthusiastic review, but in spite of the visual appeal, the gameplay itself was just not compelling.
Review by Sluggirl on CHUCHEL.