One of the challenges of trying to be fair to games in the indie space, is to be able to recognize decent designs or ideas even when they may be in very humble packages. It can be really easy to dismiss an entire segment of games out there due to their visual simplicity, but that can also be a way to miss out on something that could be fun. Slimeboo sits smack dab in the middle of that conundrum since its visuals are hardly impressive (though clean) and its controls are about as bare bones basic as can be. But that said, if you give it a little time, it actually does provide a challenge and has an element of fun to it as well.

In terms of what you’ll be doing, it’s pretty easy to understand. You’ll take control of a little ball of slime, and your goal is to get to the finishing area, avoiding what will be a growing number of types of hazards and obstacles the further you get. The trickiest thing to get the hang of is the controls, which are mechanically simple but that doesn’t make the game easy in the least. It’s a one-button affair, with you holding down and then releasing to make higher and higher jumps. The thing is, there’s no visual gauge of any kind to help you, so what you’ll need to do is get an internal sense of how high or far you’ll jump after holding down the button for a certain amount of time. Early on this tends to go badly, but eventually you’ll likely get a decent feel for it.

What helps sell the experience is the addition of new elements every several levels, whether it’s different surfaces like ice or bouncy ones, and so on. In general, the level design does a fair job of initially introducing each new type of block, establishing an expectation for behavior, and then running with it. In particular, stages where multiple elements are combined can make for an interesting challenge, but it isn’t unusual to get throwback levels that will simply challenge your sense of timing and accuracy as well.

All things considered, I wouldn’t call it an ambitious or impressive game, but it does do a reasonable job considering what it’s working with. If nothing else, it absolutely plays out better than a good number of other simple budget action games out there that happen to look nicer, but have less to offer where it counts. Sure, it could be more appropriate playing it on your phone than a dedicated piece of gaming hardware, but for more casual players it could be a good time for a little while.