Of all the things to remind me that ‘Fruit Ninja’ developer Halfbrick Studios still exists (sorry), I never thought it would come in the form of a video game with everyone’s favourite… Bandicoot? No, the little girl is clearly a dog of sorts but I’m not really sure what breed—but forget that bit for a moment: it’s Bluey! And she’s got another video game, this time going on another adventure with her younger sister Bingo (hereon “Bingoose”), and her mum Chilli as they take on the biggest threat to their colouring and drawing affairs: their dad Bandit, who has gone ahead and stolen their golden pen and using it for his own personal gain.
While I do enjoy a good licensed game romp, I don’t think ‘Bluey’s Quest for the Gold Pen’ would have ever registered on my radar. But! Seeing as that I, suddenly, now have a brand-spanking new Mac Mini and a dying old iPhone 11 I thought that it’d be a waste not to game away on these things. I’m glad I did so as Bluey’s little adventure was far more charming than I had first anticipated.
(Halfbrick Studios/Ludo Studios)
Bluey’s Quest is a good old-fashioned collectathon adventure game. Across ten chapters, players will take on the role of our titular blue and orange (respectively) furballs Bluey and Bingoose as they waltz about these fairly large maps in search of goose foods, beads, and little bits of wildlife. The latter two will result in players earning more goose food, which is required to progress to the next stage. Each stage has roughly 25 or so of these little droppings, but the game only ever expects you to get about ten of these to move on. As players progress through each level, they’ll be greeted with (what seems to me) lovely-looking in-engine cutscene featuring the cast of Bluey as the parents build the bones of the next level for their daughters to explore.
Circling back to the whole collectathon bit: when a player gets in-game, they’ll be greeted with the bare minimum of instructions and are expected to explore the overworld at their own pace. Each level is a fairly big hub world of sorts where various platforming and short critical-thinking puzzles are put in place. Platforming-wise, Bluey has a magic wand which she can use to “hop” between little anchors place about or break objects if needed. Her arsenal of tools expands overtime, where she’ll eventually get a little glider and a jetpack and even a little bicycle in one level—which helps break the monotony up very much and I do appreciate it even if they tend to come a bit late to the party.
And, of course, this is a children’s game: the challenges are fairly simple and are sometimes timed. The difficulty goes up a notch over the course of the game, namely due to the tightening of some platforming challenges or timer-based objectives, but it’s nothing that you (and potentially your children) can’t get over after a few tries. Now one thing I do like about the design of these maps is that they encourage the player not just to explore the overworld without any handholding, but they’ll place little subtle-but-somewhat-obvious nooks and crannies in levels that encourage exploration not just by hopping about but also through gliding and jetpacking into spots that might not seem attainable at first.
Additionally, I do quite like the wordplay with a few of the challenges that Bluey’s Quest employs. Obviously, you and I are going to see through these like we do watching the cat out of the corner of our eyes as they prepare to pounce upon a table they shouldn’t, but for the younger audience these little teasers encourage a bit of thought and teaches them a few lessons on how adventure games work.
(Halfbrick Studios/Ludo Studios)
Bluey’s Quest does start to feel a tad monotonous not too long into her adventure, however. The challenges never quite increase in “scope” per se but more so are just the same ideas from the first stage albeit with a few less platforms to land on. Some of the new mechanics that keep the game fresh for players don’t quite show up til the end and I felt that it took a tad too long to get to these new tools. Bluey also has no sprint mechanic and while that’s not the end of the world, some of the stages get big enough that it feels a bit annoying that I can’t do more than just waddle to my next objective (and I know Bluey and company do not just walk!). If the players simply does the bare minimum to advance to the next level, they won’t feel as annoyed as I did at times where I tried to 100% a level with the same few simple mechanics. And while I did love looking at the visuals and enjoyed the music, the latter did begin to grate upon me in some of those earlier chapter as I pursued all the collectibles.
But I think there was a bigger lost opportunity here and that was tying in the game’s story to the actual gameplay itself. One of the best parts of Bluey’s Quest is the story itself, which is basically an episode of Bluey cut up into little pieces with the levels in-between. In them, we see everyone’s characters at play with dad playing into his kids’ imagination while mum tries to be a tad more forgiving with her challenges that she sets to create for Bluey and Bingoose. Bandit is more than happy to push and play with the kiddos in such a refreshing way that I’ve personally never seen in a children’s show and I can see why so many people love the show. I also would love to know what the original roof repair quote was that mum was able to haggle down by thirty grand (Australian money isn’t real, I know, but I’m still curious).
These lovely personalities would have been great to tie into the majority of the levels themselves, but the cutscenes simply exist as a loose connection to whatever gameplay the developers have set up next. Mum and dad themselves barely show up in the levels and there’s no voice acting of any kind with the few non-playable gnomes scattered about which is a bit of a shame. The one exception is the final stage or the “final boss”, so to speak, which was a surprisingly fun bout of platforming and challenge that I wasn’t quite expecting. Good show, Halfbrick.
I will lodge a complaint, though: no cross-save for iOS and macOS? For shame! Not that this is a long adventure but I don’t have tolerance for that these days. For what it’s worth, however, the port is quite good and the game runs swimmingly on both my Mac Mini and that aging iPhone 11 I mentioned. Plus, there’s controller support and I beat the whole game using naught more than my DualShock 4 and GameSir G8+.
(Halfbrick Studios/Ludo Studios)
Bluey’s Quest for the Gold Pen is a fun adventure game. It’s got the direction and charm of an old platformer that encourages exploration in a good way for its younger audience all the while still keeping the pull of Bluey’s modern-style of writing that is enjoyed by kids and adults. ∎
P.S. Now that I have a Mac, expect more Mac reviews! It might be cold and freezing in your corner of the world, but I assure you an Island Adventure might just be cosy way to pass these days away.
‘Bluey’s Quest for the Gold Pen’ will also launch on Android via Google Play on 10 January along with PC & consoles at a later date.
Bluey's Quest for the Gold Pen
Played on
macOS/iOS
PROS
- Lovely visuals and good music.
- The Bluey cast here are just as enjoyable as they are in the show.
- Hands-free direction encourages exploration in a good way.
- Fun, simple platforming, adventuring, and puzzle solving.
- Bandit is my favourite.
CONS
- The challenges never quite evolve in any meaningful way.
- Overarching narrative and gameplay tie in the bare minimum.
