Projectile vomiting isn’t typically fun, unless it’s induced by a really cute XBLA game.
Swedish developer Southend Interactive announced this week that its new puzzle game ilomilo will be coming exclusively to Xbox Live Arcade. While the release of another XBLA title might not sound like something to jump around and scream about, ilomilo happens to be the most charming-looking title I’ve seen since LittleBigPlanet.
The game’s visuals have a strong stylistic resemblance to LBP, but ilomilo is not a platformer. The object of the game is to reunite characters ilo and milo by controlling the both of them on a fully 3D level made of cubes. Players will rotate each level (and the characters upon it), pick up and replace cubes to form walkways, send cubes off for the other character to use, and more. When reunited, ilo and milo do a twirly dance, which happens to be what I do every time I meet friends as well. Perhaps this is why I don’t have friends anymore, but I just gotta be me.
Ilomilo is so adorable I want to die and go to hell. Giant fishdogs and winged eels fly around, whimsical woodwind music plays, and the backgrounds have a storybook design. Watching the trailer makes me feel like a kid and makes me want to do kid things: lick a giant lolly, play in the sandbox, and go to the bathroom in my pants. I can’t imagine what I’ll do when I get my hands on the game.
But enough about me, other features of ilomilo include a sensible two-player mode for co-op play, leaderboards for speedy completion times, an unlockable mini-game called ilomilo shuffle, and “famous” characters from other games hidden throughout the world. Because ilomilo is being released by Microsoft Game Studios, I’m guessing these characters could include those under the MGS banner. The surreal puzzle game will presumably hit XBLA sometime this year.
