Alawishus Pixel is a very odd name. I’m not quite sure what almost-as-oddly-named developer Frog the Door was going for with the title, but it hurts my brain to look at it. Maybe there’s a missing apostrophe. In which case I have to wonder who Alawishu is, and why owns a pixel. Or perhaps Alawishus Pixel is the name of a character. Though, quite what sort of a name Alawishus is, or indeed Pixel, I don’t know. An unsolved mystery.

What isn’t a mystery is this game’s intent. Aesthetically and mechanically a throwback to the platformers that graced the 16-bit home computers, this is a game of pushing blocks onto switches and avoiding dangers, mostly by jumping over them. An adaptation of an Xbox Live Indie Games title, the only obvious change has come with the control scheme, which is itself a straightforward adaptation – from stick and button to a virtual equivalent.

What this means, then, is that once again players find themselves guiding their little be-hooded man through single-screen levels, trying to open the exit by pushing a block onto a switch. Death comes in form of ogres, bats, lava and other dangers familiar to platformers of all eras. The levels themselves wrap around – which is to say that any open edges pass through to the opposite side: fall off the bottom of the screen and your character will hurtle back through the top – pass through the left-hand edge and you’ll pop back out of the right. This leads to some very simple puzzles, but is mostly used to facilitate a game of pixel-perfect jumping, with the game ramping up the difficulty very quickly.

Which highlights both one of the game’s more clever touches, and its biggest failing. The former comes from the manner of its trial mode. Many games include a free trial supported by adverts, but Alawishus Pixel manages to use its in a way that will encourage many people to buy the game outright: rather than having them present on every level and/or menu, it displays its adverts between every level, and every time you die. Which will be often. The few seconds you have to look at the adverts for between each death, ever-more-regular the further you get through the game, begin to drag quickly, and it won’t be long before you reach for the buy button, spending 79p to remove the delay between attempts.

Which, unfortunately, reveals the latter. While removing the adverts makes rebirth swift, it only takes a little further play for that nagging feeling of frustration to return. The problem is, while pixel-perfect platforming is challenging but fair when controlled with, well, a controller, the virtual controls just aren’t precise or quick enough. Having the thumbstick be centred wherever you place your left thumb is great for finding it easily, but awful for making quick, digital motions. Worse, the game’s insistence on immediately cutting a jump short should you press in a direction after launching penalises players far too harshly when using so muddy a control scheme as this. Thanks to the above, the game quickly moves from entertainment to chore, becoming nigh unplayable as it progresses.

Quite simply, the game is too challenging for its control system. It needs to be more forgiving – both in level design, and in the way that jumping is handled – and unless the developer goes back to implement such changes, I simply cannot recommend the game. Which is a shame, as the game possesses a great deal of charm – in its graphical stylings, and in the silly little signs dotted around the levels. Developers just need to realise that when making a game for a touch screen you cannot place the same demands on players as you would when giving them physical controls – it’s just too much to ask.

Alawishus Pixel Gameplay Video

Alawishus Pixel Screenshots

Version Under Review : 1.0.0.0

There is a trial version available and the full version is available for 99c, the trial adds adverts between levels and after dying.

Our Rating for Alawishus Pixel

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