Thanks to Ratalaika Games for the review code

Title: Gravity Duck
System: PS4
Price: $4.99
Release Date: 08/13/2019

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Presentation

Another day, another Woblyware game, using a similar pixel art style. While it still looks a lot like League of Evil in some aspects as a result, I found the variety of the stages and enemy design to be way less appealing in Gravity Duck. The music is easily the biggest downgrade by far, with only a small handful of tracks that repeat consistently throughout the worlds, no doubt driving you insane. Definitely one of their weakest presentations.

Gameplay

Gravity Duck is a super simple game where you move the titular duck and use the X button to flip gravity to make your way to the golden eggs in each stage. As soon as you reach one, you move immediately to the next one, rinsing and repeating until the whole game is beaten and you get bored. I’m not exaggerating when I say this is the entire game, with the only real changes between worlds coming from hazards and enemies getting added to try and shake things up.

While the game starts simple at first, as you’d expect such a puzzler to do, it never really leaves that simplistic origin. Gradually, more enemies are thrown into stages, as are more hazards like spikes, death lasers, fire beams, along with gravity wells that change your direction, but generally each stage is incredibly short and can be beaten in no time at all. If you ever end up getting stuck, you can just keep throwing yourself at it until you figure the solution out to make a safe exit, and no matter how long I waited, I couldn’t get it to click.

The first world ends, you see, and more enemies are introduced in the second, as are more hazards… Only for the music to be the damn same, and the overall world to feel more like a repaint of the old one with differing layouts, than something that actually has fun, interesting level design.

I am not kidding when I say that despite taking a break between worlds to hope I’d get the game to click in a pick up and play fashion, it did absolutely nothing to get me engaged: Literally, clearing a stage and moving onto the next makes the old ones rather pointless, since there’s no hidden things like the briefcases from League of Evil to snag, nor anything that rewards you for speeding through the stages and dying as little as possible. What you see (and read) is all you get in Gravity Duck… Leading to a shallow, forgettable experience overall.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Gravity Duck isn’t a broken game, nor is it a badly made game. The biggest problem with it comes from the shallow nature and utter boredom factor you’ll experience. While League of Evil offered more collectibles, more content, and more fun, this game is just a linear romp from Point A to Point B, one that’ll get absolutely insufferable as you make it to the end of the second world with little in the way of anything impressive. The game works, and the concept is simple, but sometimes simplicity can be overdone, and that’s exactly what happened here. Don’t hope for the achievements to add replay value either, as it literally gives up halfway through the game before awarding you the platinum super early. Sadly this wasn’t a good moment for Woblyware, as this could have easily been just as solid as their other titles, but alas, it’s not meant to be.

I give Gravity Duck a 4 out of 10.