Viva Fall Vita #01 – Furmins – Furry Machines from Finland

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For the next couple weeks we will be introducing new PS Vita titles to you in our Viva Fall Vita Special.

Furmins was originally an iOS game by Finnish developer Housemarque (Dead Nation, Resogun). Following the success of the game there’s now a Vita version available. To call it an Crazy Machines with critters would be an acurate summary of the game.

Every level of the 96 available (PSN says 108 but we couldn’t confirm that) consists of a singular board. Small cuddly creatures want to be escorted safely to their favorite jar. So you make way for them just like in popular genre rivals like Cut the Rope or World of Goo. In your arsenal are all kinds of bumpers depending on the level structure but you cannot rotate them so you have to deal with the equipment you’re being given. In Setup Mode you arrange the pieces while with a single tap you test out your architecture in Action Mode. Swapping between the two is so natural that it aids the gameplay flow by a lot.

You get to the exciting stuff once you can interact in Action mode and you do that through tapping on the front touch screen or the rear touch pad. Utilizing these you let the little creatures bounce their way to happiness – or into the next wall depending on your skills in the Setup. Every level gives you the opportunity to collect candy as an optional collectible. If you want a 3 star rating in every board, you gotta collect all of those in addition to beat a time limit and getting all 5 Furmins to the goal. There isn’t a distinction in Furmins between a perfect run and you playing a level over and over to get all 3 stars as there is in Velocity 2X.

Surely this game isn’t the most inventive one but it’s purely fun to find different ways to beat the challenging boards. Especially in the bonus world you can try all sorts of crazy strategies. Similiar to the endless falling in Portal we managed to create an endless circuit of ever smiling critters – what a wonderful world. You unlock new levels by using up the stars you achieved. Since you earn a lot of them from the get-go you won’t have to replay old levels to progress further.

Conclusion

Furmins is a fit for all fans of challenging puzzle board games offering a variety of content and a charming presentation. You’re given creative freedom while not being overwhelmed by too many options. At around 6 US-Dollar / Pounds / 7 Euro we can recommend this game. It’s also frequently in Beatshapers’ PSN bundles.

All screenshots were captured by ourselves using the Vita’s native screenshot feature.