Planet Pete Review

Physics and gravity-based games became fairly common after Angry Birds. Planet Pete is a game that tries to put a new spin on the gametype. This is a gravity-based puzzle and arcade game where players jump from planet to planet to achieve their goals.

Gameplay in Planet Pete consists of tapping the screen to release Pete, a space exploring turtle, from various planets. Pete spins around the planets gathering momentum and, when released, will be attracted to a near planet’s gravitational force. While the game only has one action button, it’s a complicated game of timing and strategy.

Arcade mode is simply a high score mode where players try to collect as many stars and rack up the highest possible score in a set amount of time. If players collect stars quick enough, they can enter a lightspeed mode that slows everything down around them. Campaign includes various puzzles where the turtle, Pete, needs to get to a specific point to end the level. Sometimes items need to be collected to bring down barriers to reach those endpoints.

The puzzles are pretty complex. Players have to have decent timing to move from planet to planet, while collecting stars and avoiding obstacles like monsters, electric fence-type things, and exploding stars.

I only have a few negative things to say about this one:

Some puzzles, despite the fact that I could zoom out, weren’t easy to figure out because the entire level wasn’t visible. Most of the time I had to randomly explore the map and hope to find the items I needed to finish the level.

I was annoyed that “Level of the Week” didn’t actually exist. The button was on the title screen but when I tapped on it I was shown no levels to choose from. When I hit the refresh button, I received a message saying “No new levels available.” I assume that the developer is planning on adding these levels on a weekly basis. But for the feature to be there and not have any content yet is a bit annoying Update: At the request of the developer, I re-downloaded the app and was able to download the first level of the week.

Planet Pete is definitely worth giving a shot for $0.99. It has a unique and fun gameplay style. While some players may get bored and not finish every puzzle, it will still be worth the dollar for a partial finish.

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