Mushrooms away! — Oddmar Review

With the influx of Viking games that have been popping up recently, I was curious as to what Oddmar would offer that may set itself apart from other games on the market. What I found was a cute and captivating platformer with hours of gameplay potential.

Oddmar is a small, outcast member of his Viking society. In a dream, Oddmar finds that he is not worthy of a place in Valhalla. In this same dream, a fairy appears and gifts him a magical mushroom that allows him the ability to jump. When the people of his village go missing soon after this dream, it is up to Oddmar to find his fellow villagers and bring them home safely.

In the first few levels, gameplay relies mostly on hopping from place to place, but you gain new abilities and weapons over time that grant you more control in your fighting, from throwing spears to freezing your enemies. In addition, the puzzles in the game get harder incrementally–including one puzzle involving buttons and levers I just had to stare at for a few minutes in order to figure out. In some levels, you’ll also be joined by forest creatures (such as squirrels and pigs) that allow dashing or double/triple jumping, changing up the gameplay a bit.

The levels in Oddmar are the perfect length for a mobile game, and there are checkpoints in case you have to quickly close your phone or if you find a section of the game particularly difficult to get through. You can play for an hour straight or for a few minutes, and have a rewarding experience either way.

There are also specific challenges in each level that will draw you back in—from finding hidden tokens within the level to replaying the level until you beat the average completion time. Some levels also have special purple mushroom mini-levels, which often have either difficult puzzles or the added element of time (as an enemy chases you).

In addition to incredibly enjoyable gameplay, the graphics were fantastic. Each character, monster, and forest creature had distinct designs and animations that added personality. The cutscenes also had a style separate from the gameplay graphics, and while the cutscenes tended to go on for a while, you could speed through them if you wanted to (which I’ll admit that I sometimes did).

There were very few faults within Oddmar. When I first downloaded the game, it would crash every time I attempted to play the second level. However, afterthis had continued for a few days, I deleted and reinstalled the game and going forward it was entirely bug-free.

The only gameplay problem I found with Oddmar is that the controls didn’t seem to take into account the iPhone X design. Swiping up is a huge part of the game, but if you’re not perfectly accurate, you can close the game in the middle of an intense fight. Luckily this never did cause me to lose any fights, despite it happening at some of the worst times. It was still an annoyance though, and even after playing through the majority of the game, I still couldn’t get the hang of swiping without closing the game occasionally. Seeing as this was the biggest complaint I have about Oddmar, it wasn’t a huge inconvenience.

Overall, I was incredibly impressed with the details and gameplay in Oddmar, as it’s better than many console games I’ve played recently. This tiny Viking stole my heart along with hours of my time as I played and replayed through the levels.

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