Storm in a Teacup Review

One lump, or two? How about thirty or forty? Storm in a Teacup is a serious platformer with a cutesy veneer and the sugar cubes are aplenty. The levels are dreamlike in design, and the game controls like a dream.

Storm in a Teacup follows the adventures of a boy named Storm and his magical, well, teacup. Storm traverses the game's 40 levels in search of more and more sugar cubes. Sugar cubes aside, the ultimate goal is to get help Storm get to the goal at the end of each level. Populating these levels are dangerous hazards and enemies that Storm must avoid. However, sometimes these enemies and obstacles are so cute that they can be hard to distinguish from the general beauty of the environment. After a few mistakes, though, enemies can be more easily identified.

Storm's teacup can be navigated left and right through the environments via arrow controls on the left-hand side of the screen, and the teacup's altitude is controlled by using short upward thrusts triggered by a button on the right-hand side of the screen. The teacup glides more than moves, and it glides on just about every surface. In fact the teacup seems to experience no friction at all and is almost always in motion; never completely coming to rest. It isn't uncommon to find the teacup slipping off an edge into a pit or down a slope at the most inopportune times.

Other than navigation safely through each level, there are a number of puzzle elements weaved into the game. These puzzles range from guiding Storm through particularly tricky terrain to using environmental objects to trigger buttons or pull levers. These puzzles break the game up and provide a variety that is often missing in many platformers.

Perhaps the most important part of any platformer is the ability to make the fine control adjustments needed to guide the game's character through the environments. The downfall of so many platformers with touch controls is that many of them suffer from a lack of fine controls. Storm in a Teacup, thankfully, enjoys a fidelity of control that allows Storm to be navigated in a predictable way. This saves on a lot of possible frustration.

Guiding Storm and his teacup through this games beautiful levels is always a pleasure. There are inventive puzzles, interesting enemies, and gorgeous environments throughout this game. All three together make for a great platformer.