Silly Sausage in Meat Land Review

Developer: Nitrome
Price: FREE
Version Reviewed: 1.0.1
App Reviewed on: iPhone 5

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Silly Sausage in Meat Landis a free-to-play puzzle game from Nitrome in which players stretch a dog through a meat world in order to gather gems and reach new doghouses. Does this sound silly enough yet? True to its name,Silly Sausageis wonderfully creative, charming, and - of course - silly. Despite some free-to-play hijinx, it's definitely worth checking out.

The world ofSilly Sausageis a bit retro and stars a rather short 16-bit dog. However, when players swipe the screen in a particular direction the dog will begin to stretch infinitely in that direction until he hits an obstacle. If that obstacle is a regular wall, the dog grips the wall and pulls his tail-end to meet the front, and it's this form of movement that comprises most of the gameplay in Silly Sausage.However, chaining together stretches is never as easy as it sounds, as the game world is filled with obstacles and puzzles like locked gates, buzz saws, disembodied utensil-weilding hands, etc. all of which serve to add challenge (and a dash of zaniness) toSilly Sausage.

Between stretches of puzzles players will encounter dog houses, which serve as checkpoints. They can spend a certain amount of their gathered gems or watch an ad to activate the doghouse, which then will serve as a place to continue. Because players won't always have the gems to activate every dog house, this creates a risk/reward situation that heightens the tension but can be frustrating at times.

Free players that die a few times will be served ads, but these ads can be removed through a single in-app purchase. That being said, making this purchase does not allow for players to use every dog house as a check point. That ability is still determined by how many gems they've gathered. This may be a boon to some players that really appreciate the challenge (because Silly Sausage is quite tough), but for others the purchase may not feel worth it.

Regarless of how players choose to engage with Silly Sausage's payment model, its core mechanics are hard to argue with. The game is appropriately silly, smart, and challenging, and it should have most players trying to stretch their luck to avoid being sent back to the dog house.