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So I played The Maw after hearing Tycho’s recommendation and trying the demo. It looked to be a sort of short and sweet puzzle platformer, and I mean, it’s cute as all get out. That’s a recipe for success, isn’t it?

Well, yes and no.

I enjoyed the game pretty much. It was cute, it controlled fairly solid (except for the Bee-tull power, which was shockingly frustrating to use) and, you know, it was pretty fun if you like platformers. Think about to the Nintendo 64, and then think if someone had made one of those platformers, only it was short and had better and cuter graphics. That’s what the game is.
I was really expecting the game to get… puzzle-y at some point, though. The way it started out, I thought what would happen would be that I would find all these different things for Maw to eat to get different powers, and I would have to juggle these powers to get out of levels. It doesn’t really work like that, in the end. Basically, you work to get Maw big enough to get to the power, figure out how to get it, then use it to get out of the level. Still pretty good, but less enjoyable than I was expecting.
Perhaps they were worried about losing audience with the game. It’s extremely casual. You can’t die (something I appreciate. More games should be like that) and it’s pretty nice about giving you hints if you get stuck. Perhaps they felt all the puzzling would confuse some of their audience. However, I mean, it’s an XBLA game, you know? You more than likely already have a level of “hardcoreness” to even access it. I think they could have pushed it a bit more.
Losing the puzzle element also makes the game pretty darn short. If you aren’t trying to get some of the achievements and just blaze through it, you could easily feel you didn’t get your 10 dollars worth. I was alright with the length, though. I would have loved more, but I enjoy supporting good indie developers, you know? These guys obviously know how to make a game. If they made a more puzzle-based sequel, I would be grabbing it in a heartbeat. So I don’t lament the purchase. However, if you’re someone that must make every dollar equal X gameplay hours, you might want to be wary.

So yeah, I guess I give the game a sort of… bittersweet recommendation. I bet younger gamers would eat it up, and people like me, who just kinda like cuteness and solid short experiences, had a good time. I do wish it would have unlocked a gamer picture of just the cute alien. It might have gotten me to change away from my Puyo Puyo Fever girl. Heh.

Late Minute Addition: After writing the bulk of this review, I read this, which said they had three DLC levels coming for $1.25 a pop. This really kinda rubs me the wrong way. The game already feels like it’s pushing it costing 10 bucks, and now to say “oh, we have these three levels we cut that we’re selling to you” just seems… really horrible to me. I guess maybe it was a file size thing? Or maybe it’s just a money grab thing? Either way, I don’t like it very much at all. I certainly won’t be buying them.