Christmas is nearly here and I clicked on this game hoping for a delicious treat, but all I got was Grandma's under-cooked spinach instead of her signature chocolate chip cookies. Willy Likes Cookies by Falcozx is a few cups of sugar off from being the proper recipe for a great game. The game-play of Willy Likes Cookies is very similar to the "Cut the Rope" series in the sense that you have to get Object 1 to Point A and you need to collect 3 stars along the way. So, in terms of categories, this is a physics puzzle game geared toward casual games. In the realm of puzzle games this is extremely on the left side of "Casual" and can easy be picked up by anyone and beat by anyone in a short amount of time (I even let my eight-year old brother have a go at it). While the artwork is fairly decent this game falls shorts in too many categories for my liking.
There's only 25 levels in this puzzle game which isn't a problem in itself, but it IS a problem when about 20 or so of those levels are very "tutorial-like". You are constantly being catered a meal you don't want with this game, being spoon-fed the answers to nearly every level of the game. There's nothing wrong with having an extensive amount of time explaining every aspect of the game as long as it's done in the appropriate place- A short 25 level puzzle game isn't the place. After the 10th level of so the player should basically be on their own, but that wasn't the case here at all.
I feel like some of the artwork was either done by a different artist or done in a different program than the rest. I'm not sure if you guys also notice it, but some of the images are grainier than the rest. The text in this game (such as the title) is also almost neglected- something like that would take less than a minute to do in Flash. I'm on the borderline of sweet and sour with the artwork on this one and that's the best thing I have to say about that. The little tune playing in the background really didn't do it for me either. Don't get me wrong, it's not necessarily annoying, but I don't feel like it's the best song choice for this game.
What really killed me is the lack of general design that went into the the development of this game's levels and game-play. The levels, as I said, are essentially spoon fed to you. I only found a handful of levels where you could manage to beat it without getting all of the stars. I also find that it's almost impossible to lose on most of the levels. The developer's lack of capabilities were also shown since the functions of this game were extremely limited and not original at all. If you''re going to make a game similar to one that's really well polished and is very innovative, you need to bring something new to the genre or get ready to be sent home packin'.
The way the cookie crumbles is that this game doesn't really deserve higher than a 2/5. It's a functioning puzzle game, sure. But it's too easy compared to other games of it's genre, it doesn't bring anything new to the genre, and with poor level design and short game-play I would say to pass on this one. Heat up your oven and make your own cookies tonight folks, because this game isn't bring you anything sweet or delicious.
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