Wimp: Who Stole My Panties [Flexile Studio] - $0.99/$1.99 [HD]

As many of you know, the platform genre is one of my personal favorites. Has been ever since I first got into gaming. So, it shouldn’t be any surprise that I jump on the opportunity to check out new platformers whenever they hit the AppStore, and a few times, has been completely surprised at how fantastically good some of them are. Well, the newest title to blow me away is easily Flexile Studio’s first foray into the iOS gaming world; Wimp: Who Stole My Panties. Yup, you read that right. Stolen panties. While some might shy away from this one just based on the title, there are some of you out there who still have Miss Claire Garden (which some others shied away from as well, based on it’s cutsey name) on your devices, and know how great a game can be, despite it’s title. 

Welp, let’s start this thing off right; Wimp: WSMP has very nice controls, which are fully customizable, fantastic physics that actually give weight to every moveable object in the game, some killer level designs, great puzzles which, you can sometimes solve more than one way (which I know a lot of you guys love), an interesting story, engaging gameplay mechanics, beautiful graphics, awesome animations for each and every character and a soundtrack that matches the game’s look and feel perfectly. I really can not come up with one bad thing to say about Wimp. Not at all. 

Wimp tells the story of, you guessed it, Wimp. A cute little blob of a character who’s had his underwear stolen. You’ll need to guide him through 50 levels, spread across 3 worlds, collecting all of his underwear, and rolls of toilet paper, and chasing down the thief who committed this atrocity. So, you head down the toilet, and start on your journey. 

Now, with Wimp being a puzzle platformer, there are, obviously, some puzzles in the game. But, unlike a lot of puzzle platformers in the AppStore, Wimp also contains a LOT of platforming. You will be jumping around like mad, trying to hit jumps just right, and time things perfectly, with the puzzles getting more and more elaborate as you progress throughout the game. Starting off, you’ll be able to use your sticky ability, which can be activated and deactivated via a button. With this, you’re able to stick to almost any surface in the world of Wimp. When you make your way to the second world, you’ll be able to toll onto objects that will give you a fire ability. With this, you’ll be able to tap the ‘sticky’ button, and stop Wimp in mid-air, being able to either jump a second time, or use the left and right buttons to shoot to one side or the other. In the third world, you’ll be given a teleport ability, being able to place a bubble wherever you’d like, and then moving around the level, being able to teleport back to where you left the bubble by pressing the ‘sticky’ button. With these 3 basic abilities, the developers at Flexile have done an amazing job designing some very unique, interesting and challenging levels. 

Not only are you able to use these 3 abilities, but there are also numerous objects throughout the game that you’ll be able to interact with, for instance; Buttons that activate other platforms, stop or start enemy movement and open up pathways. Blocks which you can place on buttons, use to stop enemy movement, push down into acid so to use as a platform, move to reach a pair of underwear or roll of toilet paper and also place on top of enemies to push them down into spikes. There are also Blocks and other objects, like Links, that you’ll have to stick to, and wobble back and forth, in order to knock loose. Along with these there are quite a few other objects, like jets that blow you upward, platforms you can destroy with your fire ability, water that you’ll need to learn how to maneuver in, around and through, assembly line type platforms, hanging links you’ll need to stick to and swing from, machines that spit out blocks and tons more. 

All of these objects that you can interact with have their own set of physics, and actually feel like they have some weight to them. Figuring out how to utilize these aspects of the game will be necessary if you’re going after all 150 rolls of toilet paper that can be found in Wimp’s universe, with 3 in each level that you do not need to collect in order to progress through the world, and a pair of underwear that you'll need to collect in order to unlock the exit. You're also able to pause the game, and skip levels via a Fast Forward button, but can only enter new worlds if you've collected a certain number of toilet paper rolls. 

As I’ve said already, there are sometimes more than one way to get through a puzzle, and usually, you’ll only find that out after you’ve already completed the puzzle a harder way, and moved further on into the level. With this ability to have gamers make the game harder depending on what they think or know they can do is fantastic. The puzzles to get harder and more complex as you progress throughout the game, some requiring multiple actions in order to set up even more actions, and with 50 levels (unfortunately, the third world only has 10 of it’s 20 levels completed) and more on the way, including the last 10 levels in World 3, along with 20 more in World 4, there’s quite a bit of content to play through. 

The graphics in Wimp look amazing. It’s easily one of the best looking platformers, on any gaming platform, that I’ve had the pleasure of playing. Each world has it’s own environmental look and feel, with beautiful, vibrant colors and detailed levels along with great, animated backgrounds. The animations for each character are a huge plus, with Wimp having quite a few that he’ll show you while just standing still like rubbing his eyes, looking sadly down at the ground and kicking his foot, banging on his little bubble enclosure and waving at you, with the enemies turning red and clearly getting mad at you if you get too close to them and laughing at you. 

Along with all of this, Wimp has a great scoring system with each levels final score depending on how many rolls of toilet paper you collect, how quickly you complete the stage and how many times you’re injured/killed. With the scores largely dependent on how quickly you can complete each stage, it leaves the possibility of always being able to better your total score, which is shared via GameCenter on Wimp’s single total score leaderboard. There are also 40 achievements, many of which will take multiple tries in order to unlock. To complete the gaming experience, Wimp contains 2 boss battles, both at the end of Worlds 1 and 2, in which you’ll need to figure out how to injure both bosses 3 times each. 

There are two different versions of Wimp: Who Stole My Panties; the Universal version and the HD build, which has some outstanding graphics for the iPad2 and 3. Unfortunately, at the moment the HD build is not Universal. But, the Flexile is going to update the HD build so that gamers with an iPhone 5 or 4S will not have to purchase both versions (unless you’re dying to play the game RIGHT NOW). With the Universal version priced at $0.99, and the HD build $1.99, they’re both fantastic deals. After purchasing the Universal version, and making it through the first 10 levels of World 1, I wound up buying the HD version as well, simply because I felt that $0.99 wasn’t enough for the game. Now, knowing that the HD version will also play on iPhones in the near future, I’m psyched to check out the enhanced graphics on an iPhone 5 when I get one early next year (when my contract is up). For Flexile Studio’s first iOS title, they’ve made a huge splash with Wimp. Flexile is also very responsive on the game’s Touch Arcade thread and on their Twitter and Facebook pages, which is fantastic. I’m having a blast playing through each level and then going back trying to better my scores. It’s definitely a title that all platform fans need to check out, and even gamers who don’t feel that the iDevice is capable of comfortably running platformers should check this one out. Wimp is, in itself, a prime example that the touch screen is very capable of comfortably running a platform game. I can’t wait to see what Flexile adds in World 4, and truly hope that Wimp sells well, and gets all of the attention that it deserves so that we can see more titles come out of the studio. Even though Wimp isn’t complete at this moment, and that’s usually something I have a hard time getting over, it’d be even harder not recommending that every iOS gamer check it out.

**Thanks to Echoseven on TA for pointing out that there are 3 rolls of toilet paper in each stage, and one pair of underwear. Sorry for the mix-up.

Posted in: $0.99, $1.99, 5 Stars, Action, Adventure, iPad, Platformer, Recommended, Score-Chasing, Syntheticvoid, Universal