Potatoman Seeks the Troof

The search for truth is at the heart of many an epic quest throughout literature.

The search for troof in Pixeljam Games's latest platform adventure is rather less high-minded - and thank goodness for that.

While Potatoman Seeks the Troof is more likely to have you smiling than pondering life's mysteries, its gameplay will leave your brain scrambled.

Mash-up

This is another of those 'so hard it's perversely amusing' games that are de rigeur right now.

As you guide our crude blocky protagonist through each crude blocky world, all manner of bizarre enemies and hazards will be thrown your way.

Most will kill you at some point, whether through sheer weight of numbers or a rather unfair change of behaviour.

The only rule in Potatoman Seeks the Troof is to forget all the rules. That car that you just leaped over in the city stage? It's liable to suddenly double back and ram into you. The harmless-looking cacti you find yourself bounding over early on? One of them will decide to leap with you.

To be clear, there are enemy patterns to observe here, but you also need to recall the odd one that bucks that trend when you replay it for the dozenth time.

Keep chipping away

Fortunately, Potatoman Seeks the Troof's levels are just about colourful and amusing enough to keep you trying.

It also helps that checkpoints are frequent and restarts instantaneous, though there is a lives system that will send you back to the beginning of the level after a dozen or so tries.

Anyone who doesn't click with the game's bizarre sense of humour and repetitive gameplay may struggle, however.

After all, it's not like Potatoman Seeks the Troof is an absolute joy to actually play, with virtual controls that occasionally prove inadequate for the game's exacting requirements (despite being adjustable).

Still, in a genre of fewer and fewer surprises, there's something commendable about a game that messes with the rules in such an entertaining way.

Potatoman Seeks the Troof

An odd, frequently unfair, yet amusing platformer that challenges you to remember its bizarre rule transgressions and keep plugging away to find the troof at its core
Score
Jon Mundy
Jon Mundy
Jon is a consummate expert in adventure, action, and sports games. Which is just as well, as in real life he's timid, lazy, and unfit. It's amazing how these things even themselves out.