Ugly [Xbox]
A cleverly thought out puzzle game is always intriguing to me; one that has a thoroughly interesting story to go alongside it will have me invested even further. In Team Ugly’s debut title, aptly titled Ugly, you play as an unnamed nobleman - presumed to be the ‘ugly child’ from the memories found throughout the game - as he explores his destroyed mansion to uncover the mysteries hidden within its walls.
In an interesting narrative choice, there is no dialogue in the game - instead, the story is delivered to you through collectible memories, so you can learn as much or as little of the story as you choose. Memories are shown in the form of crayon, or chalk-like scribbles, really emphasising the trauma thrust upon the child throughout their life. You must locate these memories, hidden within the levels, in order to understand more of the backstory - and finding them is a puzzle in itself, as you must place your character - and the mirrored version of them - on specific points at the same time in order to trigger the memory. As you delve deeper into the story and reveal each of the memories, certain elements become clear, showing you that things aren’t always as they seem.
The primary mechanic is movement via a broken shard of a mirror, with which you can shatter reality - reflecting an alternate version of yourself on the other side. This is done in order to allow you to reach otherwise inaccessible areas, to ultimately recover keys to unlock all of the doors; though some will require a fair bit of thinking outside of the box to reach. There are six golden doors within the hub-like area, each decorated with a large, glowing gem to signify which area they line up with on the ’map’. Through each of these doors you’ll find smaller, silver locked doors with puzzles within for you to solve. The final one (they can be done in pretty much any order) gaining you the key to the next area; and so on. Each area ends with a boss fight, where you’ll take on a dark, twisted enemy in a battle of wits - you might be timing your jumps and switches to trick an enemy into causing a chandelier to fall onto their own head, outrunning an amorphous pink blob, or adjusting your reflection to reach a boss whilst dodging their attacks - think less combat, more intense puzzle solving.
Additional elements to the game mechanic are taught over time, allowing you to fully grasp things before introducing the next; the inability to reflect yourself onto pink-paint, timing your switching in order to gain height on your jumps, and cracked blue glass-shards that block your reflection to put it out of sync with yourself (this one took a lot more to get used to than the rest) - though I must admit that Ugly did a great job at explaining all of these, whilst still managing to make me feel like an absolute fool at times. Thankfully, if you get stuck in a room at any point and wish to start again, you can! All you need to do is take a swig of what could just as easily be alcohol or poison, and then you’ll wake up all groggy and no doubt feeling like shit, but you’ll be back where you need to be.
Despite being called Ugly, it has some of the most beautiful visuals around. Environments are gorgeously detailed; often mixing elegant, ornate set pieces - stained-glass windows, marble columns and fancy chandeliers - with destruction and ruin: cracked and crumbling walls, smashed mirrors, and so much pink paint splattered everywhere. The design of the memories are really effective too, with stylised, child-like scribbles telling this family’s history, and all of the darkness and trauma it contains. The soundtrack is phenomenal; composed by Jan Fité, it has a variety of hauntingly beautiful tracks that are a joy to listen to both in and outwith the game. I think the main theme is my favourite as it has a very relaxing vibe, though some of the more disturbing, distorted tracks are fantastic, too - particularly each of the tracks that play alongside boss fights, as they perfectly encapsulate each of their styles.
Overall, I really enjoyed Ugly. Like, really enjoyed it. The story is captivatingly dark and interesting, the puzzles are challenging but keep pushing you to succeed and the boss fights were entertaining and well varied, ensuring that I was kept well on my toes throughout. By the end, a lot of your preconceived notions are entirely flipped on their head, and this really helps to keep it stuck in your mind. The masterful story-telling, even in the absence of dialogue, ensures that Ugly leaves a lasting impression. Priced at £16.74 on Xbox, Ugly is well worth the time and money - and I’d highly recommend it to anyone looking for a new puzzle-y game to try.
In the end, we decided to give Ugly the Collecting Asylum rating of 10/10.
Are you interested in Ugly? What do you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!
- V x
Thank you to Team Ugly for the Ugly Xbox review code!
