As a lifelong platformer fan and indie developer myself, I had high hopes that DillyFrame Games could deliver a delightful bunny-based puzzler, but Kick It, Bunny! fails to clear the bar. After spending 4 hours completing its brief campaign filled with bugs and clunky gameplay, I was left thumping my foot in frustration. This review explains why it falls painfully short of being an Xbox gem worth your time or money.
Drab Visuals That Strain The Eyes
As apparent from the launching loading screen, Kick It, Bunny utilizes blurry low-resolution textures closer to an original Xbox title than a modern release. Panning the camera reveals a slideshow-like 20 frames per second with constant stuttering and screen tearing.
The art direction centers around saturated sunlight beating down on flat, muddy brown landscapes. Aside from the rippling blue waters, environments are barren and devoid of visual details. Shadows and lighting seem non-existent. These issues combine to create a game world that actively strains your eyes after just 30 minutes of playtime.
Clunky Core Gameplay: Flawed Block Puzzles
DillyFrame Games made the bizarre design choice to have players awkwardly kick puzzle blocks instead of directly interacting with them. The Lagomorphic hero lacks the ability to grab and push pieces freely, so you end up booting them around haphazardly like a hacked soccer ball. They routinely clip into the terrain at weird angles or go flying erratically in unintended directions.
Attempting simple block arrangements requires patience of a monk. Yet later puzzles demand precision of an architect. The defective kicking controls seem better fitted for destruction derbies than brain-teasing.
Random enemies like snakes and crabs further impede puzzle progress by stunning your bunny mid-kick. Their inclusion adds nothing but annoyance. By the 5th identical puzzle template, the tedious kicking grows insufferable. This ranks among the worst puzzle platformers I‘ve endured in decades of gaming.
Lifeless World, Devoid of Content
Aside from the core puzzle mechanic, Kick It, Bunny! contains little meaningful content. The tiny game world offers just one main island and two others with few distinguishing landmarks in between.
The bunny avatar behaves less convincingly alive than the stuffed animals of Animal Crossing with its static idle stance and two looping animations. With no idle behaviors like looking around or reactive sound effects, it feels like controlling a wooden puppet.
The desolate settings only reinforce the atmosphere of hollowness and unfulfilled ambition. The two jaunty soundtrack pieces wears their welcome after hearing them 20 times in an hour. By the game‘s end, I yearned for the diverse harmonies of Donkey Kong Country.
With no narrative, side content or surprises to uncover across 4 hours, replaying the campaign proved pointless. Speedrunning would only subject players to more torture.
Prioritizing Scope Over Quality
As an aspiring game dev myself, I understand how difficult crafting fun, polished gaming experiences can be on a budget. But some flaws seem too obvious to justify.
DillyFrame Games bit off more than they could chew in attempting an open 3D world blended with challenging block puzzles. Each of those gameplay styles require tremendous care themselves to get right. Combining them together clearly overwhelmed the abilities of this 7-person indie team.
They should have tightly focused on developing an appealing core mechanic before bolting on expansive maps or story elements. Overstuffing the scope invariably dilutes quality control efforts. By spreading themselves too thin, the small studio created an experience too shallow and hollow in every way.
The Verdict: A Lagomorphic Lag
It brings me no joy to declare Kick It, Bunny! one of the worst modern platformers I‘ve wasted money on in years. Its technical roughness and deeply unsatisfying gameplay embody an utter failure to realize the cute premise‘s potential.
Only the most patient of players could extract fun from the tedious block puzzles – and even children deserve better with so many polished alternatives available.
Instead of this buggy, unfinished title, I recommend checking out Zelda-inspired indie gem Ocean‘s Heart or the acclaimed Unravel Two for cooperative familial platforming magic.
