Ugly Invasion, published by Ukasz Games, Is a strange but creative puzzle game. To play you simply tap down and hold to create an ever-growing monster head. Obstacles will fly around the screen, and if they run Into your growing monster sphere it will disappear and you will lose a life. As you earn stars in levels you can use them to purchase new monster faces, some with powers such as slowing time. The game progressively adds More obstacles such as faster flying projectiles, as well as blocked off areas of the screen you are not able to tap or use to grow your monster. you can tilt your device to cause your created monster faces to roll to the side, which becomes useful to trap the projectiles. Sometimes, a little Pacman type monster will appear on your goal bar and chomp his way down to eat your stars, making them unattainable.
The graphics for the game are very charming the monster designs are unique and colorful. Each monster has a very interesting style, almost a “grotesque cute” aesthetic. Clicking on the monsters will tell you a small backstory. It really seemed like the creator has a lot of fun designing and writing these fun characters. The level map looks like a neighborhood and is very basic and easy to follow. Levels are unlocked as you complete the previous one. The music is a nice mixture of eerie and peppy, like a creepy music box playing in the background..
One of the confusing aspects of the game so far, is that the stars for each level reset with each monster that you purchase. it is never explained why this happens, even though it makes it easier to purchase more monsters along the way since you can just replay easier levels for stars.
The game does warn you before showing an ad, but it is unavoidable and often consists of videos. The ads are skippable after a few seconds, but it really pulled me out of the experience sometimes.
Ugly Invasion is pretty fun and with its quirky style and challenging gameplay it was a fresh puzzler with lots of fun characters.
