Cheap PC Gaming: Armadillo Run

Armadillo Run, paradoxically, doesn’t involve running armadillos. It does, however, involve rolling armadillos, not to mention bouncing, exploding and, quite often, falling armadillos.

It’s a physics-based puzzle game in which you must build a contraption to get your armadillo from wherever it starts into the big blue circle. You can’t just have the little critter pass through the circle either, that would be too easy, you’ll need to hold the armadillo in the circle for a few seconds to finish the level.

Naturally, it’s harder than it seems. You have a few materials to work with; ropes, cloth, metal bars, metal sheet, elastic, rubber and rockets. The ropes, metal bars and elastic are used for support, which means you use them to, uh, support the other materials, and the armadillo will pass right between them.

Cloth, metal sheet and rubber are use for platforms or walls or other such things. Rockets are rockets, obviously. Alas, they all cost a certain amount of money and if you go over-budget it won’t matter how perfectly still your armadillo is in the big blue circle as you still won’t be able to progress.

There are more than 50 levels, starting with tutorials and rapidly getting more difficult as you progress through them (shockingly). You can also build your own in the Edit Level section, which I usually use to build contraptions that inevitably end up being ripped apart by at least 12 too many rockets.

That or I build a fortress around the armadillo and launch rockets at it – it’s good practise for when I’m inevitably barraged with rockets. When that time comes, I’ll know all about defence in a 2D space and will be able to apply it to real life. Perhaps.

There isn’t too much to say about Armadillo Run, really. It’s all in the puzzling and it’s difficult to convey the sheer amount of time I’ve spent puzzling over the game short of saying ‘it gets really, really difficult’ or ‘my head just exploded all over my monitor’.

If you’re at all interested in building bridges, catapults, rocket-based elevators or elasticated moving platforms then you’ll have a great time with Armadillo Run.

The game is available from the website for £10 and it will run on any Windows platform you are likely to own. There’s also a demo you can go ahead and try and the game is less than 2mb. If you’re waiting for more reason to go try it you’re probably a little bit dead inside.

Not that there’s anything wrong with you.