• Add Review
  • Subscribe
  • Nominate
  • Submit Media
  • RSS

Sprinkle Joy!

Hello,
today I had few time available, so I decised to play a small game, 20-30 minutes at most, five important characters and just six maps... if I am right!
"With Sprinkes" is a 2014 game by Soihylmz made with RPG Tsukuru 2003, based on a webcomic planned out back in 2011 (only one page was made) about the Ice Cream Kids.

In this game we play as Vanilla, probably the dumbest of the group that includes Cherry, Banana and Chocolate, and the story is pretty much a fetch quest, as Vanilla is tasked to buy some things and deliver other things to some people... yes I'm being as vague as possible not to spoil the game that's in fact rather short (even if some little issues made it a bit longer for me... by the way you can also save anywhere, anytime, if you really want to).


Sorry miss, but why are you twerking in front of the door?

So you have this list of things to do and things to get, and off we go, leaving home for the town center. I liked the aestetic of the game, it features a pleasant colorful world, cute characters and a lighthearted story, that's pretty nice for change! Unfortunately graphics are not without problems: first it's a world that's a bit confusing to navigate: aside for something odd found in the house (where you exit a corridor going right, but if you go left you are in a kitchen, and then I realized that the corridor exit is a door above) it took me 5 minutes just to learn that to reach the town you have to walk exactly in the middle of the road and not on the sidewalk. Why? This made me waste some time and it's a rather illogical things to do. There's also a problem with the backgrounds of the dialogue windows, that sometimes makes sentences not very readable, and in the case of the portraits, that are cool and original like all the rest of the graphics, there's some overlapping with the text.

Another unreasonable thing is that the supermarket is closed and it will open after you do a totally unrelated thing. I mean even a message like "I shall come back later after I've done the rest" would have helped, and the same goes for the ending that is automatically triggered after you collect enough... uhm let's say "items" (no spoilers!). But this is not explained, and I even went home twice to discover I had to go back because I had not completed the tasks, despite our friend Vanilla already threw away the to-do list!

Ok, these were the problems I had with the game and maybe it's a bit too much for such a short adventure, on the other hand I liked the attention to the details of some areas, the quirky characters and the dialogue, especially the one with the worker that basically almost realized he's a npc in a videogame! A character that's in my opinion far more interesting and smart (despite blaming the government!) than our protagonist Vanilla! The other characters were just summarily sketched, but they are not bad.


Sadly we do not know, because I was extremely curious!

Final Verdict
"With Sprinkes" is a short and lighthearted experience that's unfortunately marred by some typos, imprecisions and little problems. It's true that there are no real problems or game breaking bugs, but for such a little game it's a bit too much, and some more attentions and corrections it would have been a solid and better experience. It's a pity because I liked the custom art, both the stylized mapping, the cute animations and the fancy portraits, and I also loved the song heard through the game, and the quirky characters you can talk to (Chocolate even suggest to do that!). The rating will be average even if this is not an average game, but the sum of good and bad aspects... well lead me to this 3/5!