Wimp: Who Stole My Pants is a puzzle platformer where you control a blob and take part in his quest to recover his stolen underwear from a giant fly. It is a strange plot guided along with a few comic book style pages after each world. There is really nothing to say about the plot other than you want your panties back and will do whatever it takes to get them back. Your adventure will take you through four themed worlds and the first one is by far the least interesting taking place in a sewer. It gives you the impression that this is a ‘gross out’ type of game though in reality the other three worlds are pretty charming and happy. Before you start the game you are given the choice of Hardcore that gives you a single life per level, Time Travel that adds a timer and Adventure which gives you infinite lives, no time limit, just you and puzzles to solve. That’s not to say Adventure is a walk in the park, you will be set back to a nearby respawn point and you still have a single life during boss fights.
Platforming definitely takes a backseat here as jumps are pretty easy and liberally scattered about. Your main challenge will come from the three collectible toilet rolls in each level that are always place in a hard to get position. They usually have some intricate puzzle in place to keep them from you and these require a decent amount of thought as most can be messed up to the point of being unsolvable without a level restart. Toilets rolls are required to fight the boss though they are not too demanding with the amount that you need. Aside from jumping you can also stick to things which lets you swing over locations too wide to jump over or navigating underwater by sticking to a surface and pushing yourself downwards. All levels are pretty small and can be beaten rather quickly, even more so if you are competent at puzzle games unlike myself. The entire set of levels for each world also shares a single song to fit that certain theme making the music feel a bit repetitive. Never to the point of being annoying but some more variation certainly wouldn’t hurt.
In later worlds you will get new powers that replace your sticky ability, like teleporting and becoming a chunk of ice. Teleporting allows you to set a bubble on an area and teleport back to it on the press of a button while becoming a hunk of ice allows you to sink down in water as well as freezing any enemies you touch which is your only real form of defending yourself. I am not particularly sure what the enemies are though they look like square shaped pig creatures and will kill you if touched. There is another worm like enemy that pops out of a hole in the wall though none of the enemies pose that much of a threat to you as they are immobile. The things most likely to kill you are the sharp objects littered around like saws, spikes, acid and the occasional boulders. It gets pretty darn difficult by the third world and I found myself dying over a dozen times on a level so it may be a bit much to try to play the game on Hardcore for your first playthrough. All environments are filled with detail and color making it a pleasure to look at. It has tons of nice little details like your blob having various different animations while you are idling and pigs letting out of puff of smoke in the snow.
Controls are solid and all the deaths felt like they were my fault instead of being able to blame wonky physics or loose controls. The only thing that felt wonky was the overworld menu while using a controller as it makes you click through the levels until you reach an arrow to go to the next world. Boss fights are fast paced and intense though they are all against the same enemy with the same method of attacking every time. He will hover over you and pelt you with objects until you solve all three of the puzzles required to take him down. Die once and it’s back to the beginning of the boss fight though you shouldn’t have much trouble getting back to the point you died as you already know how to solve the puzzle and the boss doesn’t get any faster after being damaged, he just slowly flies toward you. I did experience a glitch the second time I faced him that caused him to stop moving and required me to kill myself or restart the level to get him moving again so I could solve that puzzle.
One of the strangest things about this game is that it doesn’t have an ending. It just kicks you back to the overworld rather abruptly causing me to think I pressed something and skipped through the ending. I played the last boss fight again and had the same outcome. Most other games would at least have a poorly spelled ending scene like “conragtulations” or a simple “Thanks for playing!”. It’s not game breaking by any means as there is barely a plot but it is rather curious as to why they choose to end it like that. In any case Wimp: Who Stole My Pants is a fun little puzzle/platformer in a nicely made and charming setting. It is a laid back and forgiving title if you play on Adventure mode that has a nice difficulty to the puzzles you will face. There is nothing that will have you stuck for too long and the puzzles aren’t usually so easy as to knowing exactly what to do with a single glimpse. With all the fun abilities that change the way you approach things and so many levels it is a great game to pick up if you are searching for a quirky little brain teaser.
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