Ah, the balloon. Nature's squeaky toy. Bearer of helium, annoyer of younger siblings with particularly fine hair, and terrifier of cats. A bringer of much joy, and yet... oh! So fragile! They must be protected! They must be cherished! They must be hidden away across 40 levels in a puzzle game by Atomic Cicada (Minim) featuring a big blue monster! It's the logical procession of events, I tell you!!... oh, is it time for me to have a lie-down already, doctor?
Meet Nudge, Cookie Monster's beefier cousin with a perpetual frown and a soft spot for balloons. He blunders across a series of mazes, determined to push the balloons through portals to safety. Along the way he'll have to deal with blocks, mimicking barricades, and devilish bombs with minds of their own.
Your goal in each level is to get the balloon, or balloons, into the portals. They can be pushed around with your mighty blue arms... if you can get to them. While the game starts out easy enough with you maneuvering around stationary obstacles, it gets surprisingly tricky. Perhaps resenting getting pushed around, the blocks start pushing back; purple blocks will move from side to side when you do, and green blocks move up and down. What's that? You can handle mimicking blocks? Well, how about bombs that chase you and need to be kept away from both yourself and your precious balloons? What then, smart guy?! Yeah, that's what we thought. So there.
Controls are simple. Pressing the [arrow] keys moves you one space at a time around the screen, and simply moving against a movable object will push it in the direction you're facing, provided there's nothing blocking it. If you make a mistake, you can press the Undo button at the top of the screen to, well, undo your last move, or just press the Reset button next to it if you feel you've mangled the level too much to salvage. Since the bonus that can be applied to your score decreases with every step, you might want to reset anyway if you've spent too much time blundering around.
Analysis: I admit that I am fickle when it comes to puzzle games, one minute praising their inventiveness and brain-bending prowess, and the next minute turning my nose up at their frequently simple presentation and lack of aliens to blow up with big guns. Sometimes, however, simplicity can be a good thing. Nudge takes its core gameplay and polishes it up really well. Yes, you are ultimately just trying to push a balloon through a portal, but the levels are so well designed that it doesn't get stale. Some levels don't even let you touch the balloon directly, instead forcing you to make some of the moving blocks do the work for you. The various obstacles work well together or separately, and it leaves you with a nice aftertaste of smugness whenever you figure out how to manipulate your environment. Mmmm.
The nice thing about Nudge is that while there is frequently only one way to solve a puzzle, I never felt as though the solutions were too difficult. They're challenging, sure, and require you to think a few steps ahead of every action, but never unreasonably so. Because obstacles in your environment don't move until you do, you can take your time and plot out each move. The only thing you'll be missing out on is a big score for speedy completion, but with the level select screen you can easily revisit earlier levels until you have the perfect score to lord over our heads. Yes, you are indeed "the man". "Woo", and so forth.
Forty levels is a good chunk, and they move along at a brisk pace with no really obscure solutions. The problem is that the closer you get to the end, the more familiar some levels might look. Oh, we're sorry, did you hate a particular level? Well, good news! Now you get to play it again, but bigger. Or with two balloons instead of one. It isn't enough by any stretch to make me genuinely frustrated with the game, but it is a little disappointing, since some of the levels are really clever and fun to figure out. It just seems like they ran out of ideas once or twice.
With clever sokoban-style gameplay wrapped up in a cute blue package, Nudge has all the makings of a satisfying afternoon well spent. The inclusion of a level editor means you can create and share your own mazes with friends, or make your own nightmarish constructions of mines and unreasonable corridors to frustrate your enemies. Either way, Nudge is cheerful fun for the whole family. Providing none of you have Globophobia.
First!!!
Another really great puzzle game from Candy Stand. I'm working on some levels and will post.
Hmm, is it just me or does Nudge not have a ":D, :o, :S, or XP" rating up at the top of the page?
Maybe this is part of Dora's conspiracy to get more comments from enraged parents. ;)
I'm sorry urmurim, but no one cares if you're first. Please post something productive.
For a puzzle game Nudge kept me going for longer than most puzzle games do, which is saying a lot, because I'm not really a puzzle gamer. Intense puzzlers might find it a little easy, but right now it's just the right level of difficulty for me.
Also, Nudge falls asleep if you leave him still for too long. Cute!
GEEZ MF WAY TO DRAW ATTENTION TO MY SUPAR SEKRIT CONSPIRACY. You're uninvited from all of my totally awesome spy meetings now.
;) Thanks for pointing that out. Fixed!
Since it took me so long to finish level 21 I thought I'd post my solution:
right, up, up, left, left, left, down, up, down, then you're pest free to go push the balloon
FIRST PUZZLE!
"Bomb Factory"
http://www.candystand.com/play/nudge?nl=182,a11,14,a,k9,a,14,a,k9,a,14,a,d9,a,14,a,d4,c3,b,d,a,14,a,f,b2,1,h,1,d3,a,14,a,e,1,b,6,a,14,a,2,b,4,f,1,a,14,a,5,d,1,e,1,a,14,a,2,g,6,a,14,a11,182,0,0"
-PKing
Help on level 21, anybody?
D'oh! The level 21 walkthrough wasn't up when I first posted...
I feel pretty foolish, I'm stuck on 16 at the moment.
Haydn, if it makes you feel any better, I'm stuck on level 11.
Ha, never mind. I eventually kludged through 11.
I'm stuck on 13, i cant figure out how to get this guy off my tail!
is it a pigeon?
I hate to see a great big spiky blue monster cry. Some help:
level 13
work the bomb towards the bottom and get it around the corner, then go back up. You'll be one step ahead of him. (down 3, right 1, up 6, right)
level 16
you can shift the whole room downwards by going up from left to right (up, right, up, down, right, up, left, up, down, left, up, right, up
Dora (and the other or two others saying the same is easy)... did you actually beat all 40 levels? To make the walkthrough for the game, it took 3 of the top flash gamers 2 full days to complete. Specifically, levels 31, 35, 38, and 40. 40 is an absolute beast of a level.
Also, you mention the bonus as being time based. Unless it's changed since I played it pre-release, it's move based... not time based. -1 to your bonus for each move, and -2 for each undo you use.
-Tass
Actually, what I said was they were "challenging, but not too difficult", and I did indeed beat the game. I didn't fly through the levels or anything, but I found the difficulty curve nice and steady. I also said, "Since the bonus that can be applied to your score decreases with every step, you might want to reset anyway if you've spent too much time blundering around." Referring to speedy completion in this case means completion the game with a minimum of faffing about, but perhaps I should have said that.
I'm stuck on lvl 14.
The cute graphics of this tricked me into thinking it would be easy as pie. Oh, how I was wrong. I'm completely stuck on Level 31. Could anyone give me a nudge (hehehe) in the right direction?
Well...
Almost everyone has their childish moments...
Great game. Really enjoyed playing. I WOULD make a walkthrough but I can't get VLC to capture my screen and save it so...
[Edit: We would love to have a walkthrough for this game made for us. Maybe you can figure out an alternate way to make screenshots? -Jay]
can i get a hint for level 23 please?
25, why can't I figure out level 25?
Ugh, hopefully the power of posting will net me a solution.
Yup, that did it!
Username: So how DID you do level 25??? SO stuck!
typed a walkthrough for 25 but can't seem to get it on here. keeps telling me "text entered was wrong". Any suggestions?
[Edit: The error "text entered is wrong" means the captcha is not correct. When commenting anonymously a captcha is required to keep the spambots out. I recommend signing in to a Casual Gameplay account where your comments will be posted immediately. If you are getting that same error with a Casual Gameplay account, just sign out and then back in again to refresh the cookie. The error may sometimes occur if the commenter cookie has expired. -Jay]
This is how I did 25 - you will end up w/no bonus points. I'm sure I took the longest way possible. Also, if it happens to not make sense, or not work for you, I may have flubbed it up, and I apologize for wasting your time.
Push top block to center in between other blocks. Go right until two blocks are smashed. Push bottom block to center, go left until one block is smashed. Go to center and have the top left purple block push you to the right. Go to bottom left purple block and have it push you to the right. Push the block that is in the center to its original position on the bottom. Go left until other blocks are pushed together and out of the center space. Go to the center and have top left block push you to the right. Push bottom right balloon into path of the top right purple block. Go right until it is pushed into the warp square. Go left until two blocks are smashed. Go to center and get pushed to the right. Go to the far right and then go down and push the remaining block into the center. Push top right balloon into the path of the top right purple block. Move block down to original bottom spot. Push balloon to center, then down to warp square. Move remaining block back up to center. Have bottom left purple block push you to the left. Have top purple block push you to the left while pushing the block to the right. Have top right purple block push you and the block to the left. Have top left purple block push you and the block to the left. Have top right purple block push you and the block to the left. Push block down so that it is completely out of your way - you won't use it again. Have top right purple block push you to the left. Now you're free to push the remaining two balloons into the path of the top left purple block, which will need to push them one space to the right for you, then you push them to their warp squares. Sure hope this was more helpful than confusing.
OK 25 nearly killed me. So here is how I did it eventually
First you have to get rid of all those nasty blocks.
Start by pushing the top block down to the middle.
Then move as far to the right(east) as you can. This should result in two of the blocks being crushed on the left and also leave the middle open for movement.
Head back to the middle and push the block that is just below the middle all the way down.
Then head up to the top and go as far left as possible.
Then move down the left passage and across the bottom pushing the block up against the balloon (in the south east corner). This is the crushing position.
Go back left (west) and up and then right (east) and then down. You are just getting to the other side of the block you have just moved.
push the block up into the corner. Then move down and right (east) to crush the block.
Repeat 3 more times for each of the blocks.
Now you have a clear field. You need to nudge yourself 3 times to the right.
The first opportunity to do that is with the middle block coming in from the right(east). Go up to the middle and move toward the left(right). You will notice that you have been nudged right one space. You then move up,left, down the middle and then left. This will put you in the place where the lower south west block can nudge you right. Now go right and then up to the middle where the middle left(west) block will nudge you.
Good, now you can go to the SE corner and push the balloon up to the middle. Go down and right(east)and the balloon should have been nudged to the left. You can travel up and push the balloon home. Do this same kind of process for the next two balloons, which you will also have to push up and down.
Now get the 4th balloon and put in the middle right (east) and get it nudged into the channel.
Before you can push it home, however, you will have to get yourself nudged back to the left by 3 of the blocks.
To be honest, as I only did it once, I forget which ones it was, but you can figure it out.
Phdavoid
I love games where the hero does a little victory dance. I wish we could see this one's face, though, give us a reason to dance along with it.
Any help on level 31 would be greatly appreciated. I can trap the two upper baddies in the corners, but can't find a way to get past the lower one.
On 31
AFter you trap the top two with three blocks for the left one and four for the right one, start pushing the extra blocks to the third one, and make single stairsteps all the way down to the corner. Go to the bottom corner so the bomb follows you, then go up and push one of the blocks in so that it is farther left than the one above it and the one below it (the one you push in is either in the 7th or 8th column position, i can't remember). Then get bomb to follow you back up so that it is "stuck" in the top area. Then go down and trap it with lower blocks. Hope this helps.
Can't get out of level 22. Does anyone who went past that level remember how it's done?
My solution to 31 was a little different from cricket's. I hope my diagram comes out right:
After trapping the top two enemies, make it so the bottom right corner of the board looks like this:
QOZXX
XXOXX
XXOXX
XXOOX
XAXXB
Explanation: the O's and Q's are blocks. The rest of the letters (X, A, B, Z) are open spaces.
Once things are like this, go down to space B. The enemy should follow you to point A. Run up (the exact route may make a difference) to just above block Q and push it down. At this point the enemy should be stuck at point Z. As long as you stay below and to the left of point Z, the enemy will not move, so you can push the balloon into the goal at your leisure.
While doing this level I developed a severe dislike for those enemies. They felt like they had different personalities; the one on the top left was the dumb one, easily trapped; the one on the top right was slightly more clever but still could be outwitted; the last one was the diabolical one, smashing me and popping my balloon and laughing all the way through. I wish I'd been able to do something nastier to it.
Level 34 is just plain not fun. The others that I worked on for a long period of time were fun even if they took me forever. I'm just ready to skip this level. Anybody have a solution?
need help on level 28
I need help on level 22!
Someone should try my level!
http://www.candystand.com/play/nudge?nl=182,a11,14,a,f,b,d,3,d,c,f,a,14,a,b2,d,3,d,c2,a,14,a,d2,e,c,1,b,e,d2,a,14,a,2,c,3,b,2,a,14,a,4,h,4,a,14,a,2,b,3,c,2,a,14,a,d2,e,b,1,c,e,d2,a,14,a,c2,d,3,d,b2,a,14,a,f,c,d,3,d,b,f,a,14,a11,182,0,0
i need 23 plz help
anybody help on 38!plz
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