Whakman, by developer Kobingo, is a new oddly fun yet very strange platformer that has recently graced the Xbox Live Indie Games channel. The game allows players to play as a creature named Whakman as he travels throughout various levels attmepting to get from one point to the next.

Now, before I go into the strange-ness of the game, allow me to explain the machincs a bit. First, this game is a straight 2D platformer. You don’t get much more “platformy” than Whakman. You’ll jump, dash, grab coins, avoid spikes… the usual. Not to say that’s a bad thing, but people should know what they are getting when they check this game out. If you love platformers then this one is for you.

Now, back to the oddness, you play as a creature named Whakman. As I’m sure you gleaned from the cover art above, Whakman is a weird, mutant ball creature. I can’t say what he is exactly, all I know is he’s weird and likes to roll/bounce around. He is certainly one of the strangest characters on XBLIG I’ve seen yet.

Each level starts you out with no coins and a life meter that goes up as you die. Did I say up? Yes I did. In Whakman, the goal is to get from one end of the level to the other. If you collect all the coins, and don’t die a single time you’ll get a gold medal. If you die more than once but still collect the coins you get a silver. If you just complete the level you get a bronze. It’s a simple ranking feature designed to encourage replay. Unfortunately, getting gold the first time around is pretty easy in and of itself. At least for the first three levels.

Overall Whakman is a fairly standard platformer that not only looks good, but also offers a very unique character. While the game fails to stand out from the crowd in terms of gameplay, I certainly can’t fault it for it due to the solid platforming mechanics we’ve all come to know and love over the years.

Whakman is available right now via the Xbox Live Indie Games channel for 80 MS points ($1). If you’re at all interested in picking up a new 2D platformer I recommend giving Whakman a try.

[This is not a review. This is a "first impressions" piece based on less than an hour of gameplay.]

Screenshots