Ugly is ironically Beautiful both visually and as a puzzle game | Review - Ugly
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✨Overview
Ugly is a 2D puzzle platformer that immerses players with an innovative mirror and swapping mechanic. The game centers on unraveling the protagonist's mysterious past through a series of intricate puzzle rooms and challenging boss encounters. The game released recently on both iOS and Android, following a release last year on Steam for PC.
🟩Pros
+Excellent art design
+Atmospheric experience
+Innovative mirror and swapping mechanic
+Excellently paced puzzles and levels
+Both touch and physical controller support
🟥Cons
-Story is a little too minimalistic
-The blur effect during checkpoint reloads feels unnecessarily disorienting
⭐️Score: 8/10
📖Story and Premise
Ugly is set in a dark and twisted fairy tale, and plunges players into the intricate recesses of a red nosed nobleman's mind. The narrative unfolds through hidden rooms and hints scattered throughout the game, creating an immersive minimalistic experience where players gradually untangle the protagonist's tragic past — all without use of dialogue or texts. Personally, I found the story a little too minimalistic for my tastes, but there is charm in these kind of narrative styles.
🎨Visuals and Art
Despite the name, Ugly is actually a beautiful 2D game with excellent art design characterized by moody cartoonish aesthetics and authentic looking classic-style animations. The game's interactive elements contribute to an immersive atmospheric experience while exploring the eerie and unsettlingly calm ambiance that permeates the levels. It’s not a really a horror game but its still eerie and unsettlingly calm, with very minor jumpscare moments if you’re not paying enough attention.
🎮Gameplay
Gameplay in Ugly revolves around a puzzle-centric approach, with players utilizing the mirror mechanic to navigate through challenging puzzle rooms. One button summons the mirror, which in turn summons your mirror image as well. You can summon the mirror horizontally or vertically, which will affect how your mirror image moves.
Moving around the world moves your mirror image inversely on the other side, and with a press of a button you can swap places with it, leading to an interesting platformer experience where you need to pay close attention and utilize your surroundings to reach otherwise unreachable places.
Ugly gradually introduces more elements in the levels as you play, such as the pink goo that stops you from swapping, a ticking clock that forces you to swap, or the crystal blue ice that interacts physically with your mirror image.
🧩Puzzles
Every big level there is a collection of rooms containing puzzles inside to solve, and you are free to choose in which order you want enter and and solve them. The puzzles are excellently paced, they are evenly spaced apart and divided into these little bite sized rooms that are easy to digest.
There is a variety of puzzles to solve; some are pure platforming challenges, while others are more interactive or might require some physics or timed element to solve. Some puzzles are easier than others; though there are challenging ones demand a lot from you that might seem impossible and can be frustrating. Apart from solving this wide range of puzzles, I was surprised to encounter boss fights in this game, but they bring another layer of freshness to the experience every time you complete a section.
The game also allows the player to restart/return to checkpoint at any time, and it is part of the game’s narrative as one of the protagonists abilities which is neat. There will be platformer/puzzle dead ends in this game that require the use of the restart button more often than usual — which feels refreshing honestly. Might come across as a weird pet peeve, but I don’t like being handheld to where I want to go in games; I want actual dead ends from time to time.
📊Technical Performance
The game supports both touch and physical controllers, and using both schemes, they are perfectly viable. I found touch a little bit easier since the icons are easy to tap and recognize, but at the expense of blocking some of the screen. Using a controller allows you to see all of the screen, but I found the already simple controls a tad bit harder.
Performance is good on my phone and with the lightweight nature I’m sure it would run fine in most modern smartphones. One minor gripe — during checkpoint reloads, there is a on-screen blur that is a little disorientating; I wish there was an option to disable it, as It might pose a problem for those who are more sensitive.
⚖️Conclusion
Ugly manages to ironically combine aesthetic beauty with engaging puzzle platformer gameplay, making it a solid title to try on mobile if you love puzzle like games. The story is a little bit minimalistic, but it’s inventive ‘mirror’ mechanics and excellently paced puzzles are more than enough to provide a compelling experience.
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