Ryan Veeder's Judgment of "Mr Cuddle Cuddle Bop Bop"

This game apparently shares some level of continuity with "Chimeric Island!" How delightful! And it is in fact revealed that, besides reusing the dedicated parser, Inverted Normals utilized some random doll generation material written for "Mr Cuddle Cuddle Bop Bop" in "Chimeric Island," or the other way around! This is clever, but it also seems like an exploit. I don't know how to feel about this.

I noticed the detail of powder bringing dolls to life in "Chimeric Island" without really processing it. When I noticed the rats in this game, something clicked, and I realized that Inverted Normals has been referring more to the world of "Foo Foo," in which dolls are animated by magic fairy dust, than to "The Island of Doctor Wooby," where there is no dust or powder, and the rules are much more poorly defined. Once more, in an attempt to play to my ego, these Inverted Normals have invited a comparison that may not play out to their advantage, for "Mr Cuddle Cuddle Bop Bop" is no "Foo Foo," although it succeeds in recreating the previous Exposition winner's delightful tone to some extent.

The structure and pacing invite additional comparison to "85 Verbs" by Prismatik. Both games want to guide me from scene to scene, sometimes with a great deal of urgency. "85 Verbs" is much more successful in this regard. It might be in the finer points of the writing, or it might just be that "85 Verbs" is passionately opposed to the player getting stuck, but the action in "Mr Cuddle Cuddle Bop Bop" sometimes seems not so cinematic and more like a storyboard.

But, speaking of cinematicness, I really liked the switching between perspectives in the introductory sequences. I really liked the casino puzzle. I really liked the presentation of the input-thieving scene, although I have to say that is not a fun puzzle to undo/retry over and over again.

Therefore I award "Mr Cuddle Bop Bop" 19.9 points out of 30.