Ruffy and the Riverside

I was introduced to the 3D open-world platformer Ruffy and the Riverside through its PR company asking if anyone would like to cover the demo. Seeing the screenshots alone instantly drew me in and I didn’t hesitate to say yes. It is easy for me to say that I adored the demo, and I fell in love with everything the game was offering, so I signed up for a review key as soon as I possibly could. That time has finally arrived and after finishing the full game, I am pleased to say it’s lived up to its strong potential. 

In the game, the player takes control of Ruffy, a young bear, who has a magical ability to copy and paste textures called SWAP. We join up with Ruffy just as Sir Eddler arrives to ask for help with a few tasks that need attention. Somehow, during this, they manage to free the evil Groll from his prison of many years and is now rampaging around Riverside, causing all kinds of mischief and chaos.

Through the mayhem, Riverside’s Hollywood-style sign gets damaged, resulting in all the letters from the sign being scattered across the land. No biggie, I hear you say, but these letters are needed to power the world core, which is what brings peace, balance and glues this world together. Without it, the world would not exist. So Ruffy and his bee friend, Pip, set off on an adventure to find all the missing letters, restore the world core to full power and stop Groll along the way. 

Ruffy will achieve this mostly thanks to his SWAP ability, which allows him to not only copy textures but also elements or colours and paste them onto a different surface. For instance, at the start of the game, Ruffy is tasked with escaping from a falling rock. To do this, Ruffy copies the ivy that’s on the rock and pastes it onto a nearby waterfall, turning the water into ivy and giving him the ability to climb up the waterfall and to safety. 

This SWAP can also be used to copy and paste other elements to. There are multiple puzzle potatoes that, when solved, will gift Ruffy one of the game’s collectibles, a Dreamstone. These are completed by copying a pattern that is usually painted on a wall not too far from each one. The potato has a grid of 9 tiles on its front with random shapes and Ruffy has to copy and paste these shapes until it matches the pattern on the wall. 

One of the other striking inclusions of the game are the Mario Odyssey-style wall stages that will also give Ruffy a Dreamstone when completed. To gain entry, a riddle needs to be answered by copy and pasting tiles for which the entrance will appear once it is answered correctly. These mini stages are painted onto a wall and will convert to a 2D view. Inside, there will be obstacles or enemies in Ruffy’s way that will need to be cleared and here’s the clever part: you will have to clear these obstacles before you jump into the stages by copy and pasting certain elements to clear the path. 

Ruffy’s SWAP is integral to the game as it feeds into all the main puzzles and quests, and it’s a genius idea. It gave the game such a playful element, as I was always exploring different combinations to see what would happen or taking great pleasure in turning green leaves on trees to a more fetching purple. It also gave the developer Zockrates Lab an opportunity to go wild with some original and thoughtful puzzles, which they grabbed with both hands. There were times, though, when the puzzles did get a little too cryptic, and with no in-game hint system, it did take some time to figure out exactly what I needed to do to progress. 

This does grate with other aspects of the game, as it mostly seemed like the developer was doing their best to make it as accessible as possible. The answers for the riddles to the wall stages can be bought for 50 coins; there are wall paintings all over with clues to where you need to go and your next destination is clearly marked on the map and in game. So it was slightly surprising that what are mostly main quest puzzles were left out of these accessible features, which would have been very welcome. 

One good aspect of a 3D platformer is collectibles and Ruffy doesn’t disappoint. The main is, of course, coins with many, many scattered all over ready to be collected. The accessible nature of the game means that the coins will respawn if you do die or even leave and come back to an area, meaning you’ll never have a short supply. These coins have multiple uses, such as purchasing different coloured capes that can be upgraded by playing a slot machine-style game. This gives you upgrades to your stamina and health, though I didn’t really engage with this feature that much. The other uses for the coins are to buy more permanent or temporary hearts for your health, which were welcome, as some of the boss fights did give me some trouble and Ruffy can also pay entrance fees for some of the hay bale racing (no, that wasn’t a mistype!).

Visually, Ruffy and the Riverside is a wonderous treat. The world is so colourful, bright and positive that I couldn’t help but smile throughout my time with the game. There’s a playfulness to the designs of the towns and Riverside in general that is surprisingly infectious. The Paper Mario influence is clear to see through the character models, with most represented by thin paper models that have been created with some beautiful detail that I very much appreciated. With Ruffy, you can see where he’s been coloured in with crayon, which moves on its own accord, which gives off this wonderful effect. I also adored Ruffy’s movement and walking animations, as they not only gave him more personality but they also just made me feel happy.

Some characters received full 3D treatment, with one being the main antagonist, Groll. I loved this design so much, as it brought out his mischievousness and, to some extent, playfulness perfectly. Groll’s animations are some of the best too, with his spinning movement a personal favourite. This mix of 3D and 2D character models actually meshed really well together, and it only added to my enjoyment. 

There are so many little touches too. I loved the look of Ruffy in the 2D wall stages, transforming into a fully drawn model or when he did get hit, going into black and white until he recovered. Animals are all over in the game’s paper model style. Deer, birds and such will be seen, making the world feel a little bit more alive. The environments, like beaches and forests, have been nicely realised and even water and clouds seem to have been given some extra TLC. 

Sound design and the music are worthy of a mention too, with fun, happy melodies playing in the background, with a couple surprisingly featuring lyrics which will certainly be added to my playlist as soon as they are made available. One of the areas that always made me smile was the noises Ruffy made while I was running around, with spontaneous chuckles or a “woohoo” and Pip letting out little giggles. This only added to my fondness of Ruffy and co. and my feelings of happiness, though I can totally see this also getting on some people’s nerves.