The Maw

As a character, the Maw is nothing more than a round purple blob with a lone eyeball on top. But his gigantic mouth, puppy-dog tongue, insatiable appetite, and unflinching loyalty to your avatar — a bipedal alien who was freed along with the Maw when the slave ship they were captives on crashed — make him irresistibly cute.

The Maw’s gameplay is also a treat. As a puzzle platformer, the goal in each of the campaign’s eight missions is to lead Maw around by an electronic leash, using him to navigate a path to the end of the level while overcoming various obstacles. To do this, you’ll need him to consume different creatures, which grants the Maw certain abilities. Eating a, um, floating worm thing turns him into a big balloon, making him big enough later in the stage to swallow a giant beetle and transform into a battering ram.

Unfortunately, the Maw’s size is one of the peripheral problems that holds the game back from greatness. As he grows, camera management becomes increasingly more annoying, while finding your way through areas — especially when backtracking — can be quite slow. And in the event you get stuck once or twice, as we did, there is no help or hint system to help move you forward. We appreciate that you can never really die, so thankfully, frustration is held to a minimum.

Since The Maw is simply adorable, we also give Twisted Pixel props for including two gamer pictures and a theme as unlockables; it’s a neat fan-service gesture we’d like to see turn into a trend. While we’re at it, we’d love to see a fully fleshed-out $60 Maw sequel, too.