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Wimp: Who Stole My Panties

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Wimp: Who Stole My Panties

Do you remember when consoles were defined by their flagship platform games? There could have been no SNES without Mario, no Mega Drive without Sonic, and no Amiga without, er, Zool.

Now, I'm not suggesting that the gelatinous alien goo ball at the heart of Wimp: Who Stole My Panties is the iPhone's answer to Mario, but he's probably the closest we've come yet to finding a platforming hero to headline the App Store.

He stars in a physics-heavy platformer, and he's on the hunt for his stolen pants. In each level you get to the end by bouncing over a few pits, avoiding the odd trap, and rescuing your y-fronts before escaping down a tube.

Super Wimp

But that's not the half of it. As is customary for any video game released in the year 2012, each stage also hides three bonus items to find. This time they're toilet rolls, and they're are all hidden at the end of puzzles and crafty physics head-scratchers.

You might need to topple a box onto a switch, glue yourself to a great swinging pendulum, or build a makeshift bridge with crates. Great care and attention has gone into each puzzle - they're all inventive and imaginative, and give you good reason to come back to levels you didn't fully complete.

And then, just as you've gotten comfortable with the game, Flexile pulls the rug from beneath your feet and introduces a fresh mechanic.

In the first levels you can make Wimp stick to objects like glue. But in the second batch of levels, Wimp becomes a fizzling fireball, capable of bouncing across the room in an explosive leap. And then, everything changes again in the third chapter.

Wimp's Revenge

The controls work well. It feels a bit like LittleBigPlanet, but where that game was criticised for its floaty jumping and mushy controls they feel right at home in Wimp. They fit the touchscreen buttons, and suit the game's squidgy, gooey hero. They're customisable, too.

Wimp is, by all standards, a great game. It has outstanding graphics, a huge amount of content for your money, and by putting the focus on puzzles rather than tricky leaps and enemy encounters it manages to get the best out of a touchscreen.

Wimp: Who Stole My Panties

Wimp is a charming, colourful platformer with inventive levels and great physics-led puzzles. It controls well and is bursting at the seams with content. An easy recommendation
Score
Mark Brown
Mark Brown
Mark Brown is editor at large of Pocket Gamer