Quadroids Review

Quadroids, from Blue Loop games is – to put it simply – a mind-fuck sort of game, testing not only our puzzling mettle but also our ability to concentrate on four screens at once, each controlled with a separate button (though the action is the same). It’s more-ish, maddening, and cleverly put together, even if I am not all that competent at it.

The premise is simple enough; one or more of the little astronaut dudes pops out of the rocket ship and using the ability to jump (as they auto run) we must get them to the goal, along the way avoiding hazards of various types. Simple, but with a catch.

The screen is split into four and our astronaut moves between them (though not in linear order). Each section is assigned a button (I had the default of LT/RT/LB/RB) and this is the only button that will cause our little dude to jump while they are in the respective part. The levels are colour coded to a degree to try and give us a heads up on where they may appear as they move between screens, but there’s definitely more trial and error at play in learning the route they will take.

So we have to watch where they’re going and time our jumps using the right button – still easy enough, right? Well, at first, maybe. But it doesn’t take long before the difficulty ramps up, introducing several astronauts at once, extra collectibles to try and nab in a tight time limit, and hazards the require actively sacrificing some astronauts to enable the rest to make it to the goal. And of course, there are extra medals for beating the par time and using fewer than a certain number of jumps for those looking for extra challenge.

Things become especially head-fucky when we’ve got astronauts on opposite corners of the screen, each requiring a separate button and timing to traverse the level in their section. I like to try and test my skills when these extra challenges are included but it didn’t take long for me to be happy enough with just reaching the goal at all. Even then, the challenge is still real and there have been a few times so far where I’ve just kind of hoped for the best when attacking a level, only barely even making it.

I did feel the difficulty was a bit haphazard in this regard, with a tough level randomly popping up in between far easier ones. With no option to skip and come back to it later, we just have to beat our head against the wall until we can pass the level.

Conclusion

Quadroids is definitely not a game I could sit down with for an entire evening of play, but even though I’m pretty bad at it I’ve enjoyed my time with it as something to play for a bit before moving onto something else. Co-op play is available to split the screen real estate with too which is handy, though the need for good timing and communication will still be there as some of the levels are pretty exacting in this regard.