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There are a few words to describe a person to have courage and determination, two of which being spunk and moxie. However, what were to happen if they manifested into sentient beings? For “Spunk And Moxie” a platformer game is created. With a cheerful direction, you don’t need courage to play it, but it certainly takes a lot of determination to beat it.

“Spunk And Moxie” is a puzzle platformer that only uses a jump button and a use item button for controls. While you’ll use the jump button most of the time there are methods of jumping; power of jump (extended or short depending on how long the button is held down), wall jumping, and mid-air jumps are the tricks of the trade for these escapees. The power ups (aside from Nitro since its passively active) utilizes the jump button as well, which can make it a bit difficult to control Spunk and Moxie. It may not be as convoluted as the CDi Zelda game controls (as the stories may suggest) but there are problems, especially with wall jumping while having the Rocket Fuel power up.

Discretion is advised when giving slime girls Rocket Fuel.

The game comes with difficulty settings but that only adjusts the rate of which the Spunk Meter (health) depletes. The challenge comes from the stages, and the precision needed to complete each course. Naturally, there are stages that introduce what’s to come but there’s going to be a lot of time spent on completing a level or twenty. After some practice and effort, you are rewarded with medals for any accomplishments completed on the stage. With challenges in each level, however, you won’t get every medal in one shot. Luckily, the game doesn’t hold it against you since the game records the medals, allowing you to replay the courses and collect them all.

Between completing courses and collecting medals, there are also ghost races (which used to allow you to test your skills against another person’s from the Global Leaderboard). I say “used to” because as I’m writing this review I can’t connect to the Global Leaderboard…So I´m limiting it to the Local (on system) leaderboard. This issue decks replayability since Ghost racing is a presented feature added some longevity to it as well as having some competitiveness in the game.

This killed a good chunk of the game right here.

The stages fall under three themes: Warehouse, Factory, and Laboratory. The Warehouse and Factories levels have the cartoonish feature of being full of crates and gears respectively. It would be expected that laboratory would follow suit, but it turned out to be a SciFi space station with plenty of chemistry tubes full of Spunk in the background. While the Laboratory levels look awesome that is not to say the other two are bad, since all of them are well detailed and shaded with some nice backsets. A nice touch added to the stages are interactable objects (outside of switches and breakable objects) that have chains and ceiling lamps that swing and giant bulbs, which glows as you pass them. Even when there’s pressure to complete the stage for medals the view is always pleasant to look at.

Spunk and Moxie look like what they’re supposed to be: blobs full of determination. Spunk is the green blob while Moxie is the pink one with a bow and different facial designs (like Ms. Pacman but with an actual different name). While these are the adorable, courageous globs of science, you start off with there are three more characters to play as: Lunky, Meaty, and V6. These non-DLC characters look like their game counterparts in slime form, but I think they missed out on Meaty for the red trail aesthetics.

The developers must have had a lot of spunk put into the Laboratory stages.

The music is upbeat and catchy to get the player into the groove of playing the game. There isn’t much build up until the Laboratory stages where you can hear that final stretch sort of melody to hype up the levels’ puzzles. The Laboratory courses also seem to have a bit of a Capcom beat in the score. The “voicing acting” for Spunk and Moxie are adorable “woopee” sounds that may not be unheard.

Get Spunk and Moxie across to safety so you can put Lunky, Meaty, and V6 through the exact same ordeal.

For controls, again, there are two buttons you’ll use throughout the game. If you’re having trouble with wall jumping you can switch it from Manual to Automatic, which makes it easier on your fingers. The automated wall jumping’s power can be short or extended depending on how long the button is held, much like normal jumping. You have two choices to which you can control Spunk and Moxie: gamepad and mouse. Either one is acceptable since you’ll be using just two buttons, but personally I found it easier to use the mouse for having two fingers ready on the jump and item buttons and just out PC preference.

Pros:
+ The game is full of puzzling stages that will keep you invested.
+ Simple controls.
+ Plenty for the completionist with medals and unlockable characters.

Cons:
– Unable to connect to the Global Leaderboards, removing Ghosts of other players.
– Sometimes jumping and power ups don’t mix well.

Gameplay: 3.5/5
Graphics: 4/5
Sound/Music: 3.5/5
Controls: 3/5
Replay value: 2/5

tgg grade 3 out of 5

Verdict: 3/5
“Spunk And Moxie” is a game to challenge yourself with timing and accuracy but there isn’t much in replayability. Sure there are plenty of medals, achievements, and characters to unlock but when the one method to go against another player’s ghost can’t connect to a server you can’t really go for the gold. Nonetheless, it is a game to test your skills and fill the weekend with.

Title: Spunk And Moxie
Developer: Chocolate Homunculus, Tilt Studios
Format: PC
Genre: Indie Action Puzzle
Resolution: 1680×1050
Release date: 2016-4-06
Difficulty: Normal to Hard
Spent time: 3+ hours
Average grade internationally: 45.00% Gamerankings.com
PEGI/ESRB age rating: PEGI 3/Everyone+
Price: $3.99