Underground Games: Ivy the Kiwi?
You know what game is awesome? Sonic Generations. After running through it for hours, it reminded me of how great Sonic can be when the developers focus on game play rather than convoluted story lines involving multicolored anthropomorphic animals and “amazing HD” graphics. But while playing it, I couldn’t help but think of another gem from Sonic creator Yuji Naka. One that went completely unnoticed at the time of release, but was one of the most purely enjoyable games I played that year. “Ivy the Kiwi?” was a back to basics approach to platforming, that not only took good ideas and made them better, but created a balanced approach to puzzle platforming that showed how effective mechanics is all you need for a great game.
Title: Ivy the Kiwi?
Developed by Probe
Published by Xseed Games
Platforms: DS, Wii
Genre: Puzzle/Platforming
Released in 2010
Where you can find it: Gamestop’s Used Section, (probably next to a copy of Let’s Tap,) Amazon.com.
In Ivy, players followed a small bird that has recently hatched from its egg. Lost and alone, the baby must travel through 100 levels of dangerous forests, threatening cities and a ton of pissed off mice to hopefully find her mom and live happily ever after or some junk. Throughout, you don’t actually play as Ivy. The dumb bird does nothing but run forward, oftentimes to her death. It’s up to the gamer to act as her guide, drawing vines to bridge gaps, block spiked walls and create new paths.
For anyone that played games like Yoshi’s Touch and Go, (sorry if you did,) or Kirby’s Canvas Curse, the idea of drawing paths on the DS touch screen isn’t a new one. What made Ivy special to me though, was the natural progression in difficulty that the game took you on. It doesn’t introduce any new abilities until late in the game, but instead it gradually teaches you new ways to use your existing abilities. So eventually, you’ll learn to use the vines to catapult Ivy to otherwise unreachable areas or fling her into enemies to take them out. The game never feels too difficult because of how seamlessly it integrates new moves into the adventure. Don’t believe me? When you go out and get the game, (and I know you will after reading this, *wink wink*) hand the game to someone out of sequence. What is otherwise a simple stage when played in order might be really challenging to someone who hasn’t started from the beginning. It’s rare that a game can build up the gamer’s skill so well.
The great thing about Ivy was that it was the perfect game for quick gaming sessions. Each stage was under a minute if you knew what to do, but got challenging enough to feel rewarding when figuring out some of the late stages. Every ten stages had a different theme, usually revolving around certain types of traps, enemies and environments. Each one was animated like an old story book, making the game come to life as each stage zoomed by. And much like Ivy’s hedgehog cousin, she could run pretty fast when on a roll.
Ivy the Kiwi? got little to no advertisement or attention, but it was one of the better DS games to hit the store shelves in recent years. If multiplayer is more your thing, the Wii version offers split screen co op and versus modes, but if you were to ask me, this type of game is better suited for portability and drawing on the touch screen instead of waiving your arms in the air. It not only helped me believe in this little Kiwi that could, but showed how simple, refined game mechanics could take a game much farther than high end graphics and so called “adult” stories that some titles favor, especially when it’s a generally light hearted universe, (I’m looking at you Sonic.) So after how awesome this game turned out the real question is: why wouldn’t you play Ivy the Kiwi?
