Brave Furries

Brave Furries is a tough game to pin down. It shares similarities with a few different puzzlers (Sokoban and Peg Jumpers come immediately to mind), and it utilizes a rather interesting method of monetization.

But while the ways Brave Furries tries to nudge you towards your wallet are unique, they don't feel right in a paid game. And they're actually more interesting than the puzzles themselves.

Each puzzle in Brave Furries is about getting your Furries to hop over to like-coloured spaces in a spiderweb. The catch is that they'll move all the way to the very end if nothing gets in their way, or stop as soon as they bump into one of their buddies.

Completing a stage is a matter of carefully planning out your moves and making sure you don't block yourself in - something that becomes a lot more difficult when you're up against levels that use timers and multiple consecutive puzzles.

As you progress you'll free new types of Furries that make the puzzles more complex. But ultimately Brave Furries never feels very rewarding.

It's also rather off-putting to find a reliance on what's best described as an abstract energy mechanic in this paid game.

Every so often you can tap on some blue floating wisps to collect them, then use them to access new puzzles, undo a bad move, unlock more mini-games, or restart puzzles that have gone horribly wrong. You can also make use of a special crystal and unlockable mini-games to collect energy a little faster.

It's not a terrible monetization model (I'd even go as far as calling it ideal), but it feels incredibly out of place in a game that isn't actually free.

Arguments about the moral implications of forcing what basically amounts to an energy timer into a paid game aside, Brave Furries ultimately just isn't all that much fun. The puzzles do get more complex and challenging, but they never truly entertain.