Mushroom Men was an interesting IP from Red Fly Studios in 2008, and it provided two distinct experiences on two different platforms. Rise of the Fungi on the DS received poor marks from a variety of outlets, but The Spore Wars was a much better 2.5-D action-adventure game. Unfortunately, it was only released on the Wii, and with that system's track record with most third-party games, it was no surprise that the title never reached much of an audience. The series stayed quiet until the recent surprise release of Mushroom Men: Truffle Trouble on the PC.

You play the role of Pax, the protagonist of the first game. One night at home, he receives a love letter from an unknown admirer. Wanting nothing to do with the person whose tone borders on that of a stalker, he burns the letter and promptly goes to bed. Unfortunately, he has nightmares of a behemoth named the Truffle Princess, who wrote the letter and is now chasing after him. Not wanting to get caught, your job is to run away from the princess and get Pax out of this nightmare.

The gameplay is rather standard for a platformer, which is set in a 3-D world with a fixed perspective. Pax can walk or sprint in all directions, though forward progression is only accomplished by going right. He can stomp on enemies to eliminate them or jump on them to stun them; he can then kick them out of the way before they recover. He can jump but without much height, and he supplements that by moving boxes to gain elevation and distance for his leaps. He can drop down along block edges and shimmy to get better positioning, and he can also jump into cannons to get extra propulsion. No matter how he does it, his goal at the end of each stage is to get to bed before the large princess grabs him and takes him away.

For the most part, the game mechanics deal with being able to manipulate blocks in a timely manner, so you can constantly move forward without getting caught. You can push and pull blocks to set them into place, mostly as a means of creating stairs since you can only jump one block high. As in similar block puzzle games, blocks can be suspended in the air as long as their edges are touching. You can also carry blocks to other locations to stack them, and while you can fall down to a lower level while a block is still in your hand, you can't leap up with one.

A number of people will enjoy solving problems in a stress-filled environment, but others may not be willing to deal with performing under pressure. Luckily, the game features an Easy mode that leaves everything intact but takes away the princess from the game. The simple change means you can take as much time as you need to solve the puzzles, some of which are quite devious. Even those who love the pressure of the chase might dip into this mode to get a sense of what the strategy should be before returning to the normal difficulty. The mode may be easier, but when you activate Easy mode, it means you aren't eligible to be listed on that stage's leaderboard.

There are some annoyances that, depending on your patience level, can be frustrating. Getting caught by the princess always sends you back to the beginning of the level, which can be devastating for some of the long levels. Enemies are sometimes placed in positions where you accidentally hit them, and even though you'll instantly respawn in the same spot after death, it doesn't make the deaths less annoying. There are also a number of puzzles that only have one solution, and missing any of the steps leads to unsolvable situations. If you can live with all of this, then you may feel that the puzzles you encounter are essentially the same. The blocks may look different, but you'll always be guaranteed to make some stairs with the moveable blocks, bounce across a gap with a trampoline block, or get in a cannon and fire yourself off a great distance. With 40 main levels and four bonus levels to tackle, the tasks can become boring unless you go through the game in small chunks.

Perhaps the biggest gripe is the controls, which are essential when you deal with a time-based platformer. Playing it with a keyboard is possible, but the finger gymnastics almost beg you to use a gamepad. The game is rather inconsistent when dealing with edges, so while you may not fall off spaces while walking toward the camera, you'll certainly do so when walking away from the camera. The various button actions are placed oddly and lead to several accidental deaths. For example, the same button used for stomping also activates the shimmy, so you can force yourself into a pit if you hit it twice. You can never jump from ledges, only drop or ascend with the button that's used to push and pull blocks. The camera also makes it difficult to tell just where you are in the platforming sections, so you can fall to your doom without realizing it, and there were a number of instances when you'd somehow get stuck in the ground since you were near a block when you set it down. Overall, it feels slippery and confusing — and both are undesired traits in this type of game.

Graphically, Truffle Trouble can be quite a looker. The modeling for the backgrounds is great, as are the few character models. Texture work is well done, and the frame rate is solid. The real star is the lighting effects. Pax emits his own light, and the shadows that are cast around him make everything look excellent. Seeing them bend and grow as he moves is breathtaking, but the effect can be overused. The garage levels feature a car in the background with headlights that shine at the player, creating an effect of temporary blindness and annoyance until the levels are completed. The title features no graphical options, so there's no way to turn off this effect or turn on v-sync, which would've reduced the prevalent screen tearing that occurs when you move forward at a good clip. Also, the screen indicator to let you know that you have spore powers at your disposal is obnoxiously large, so you'll want to use your power as quickly as possible just to get rid of the constantly popping text.

The audio is merely fine. The only voice belongs to the princess, who constantly proclaims her adoration for you. The lines can be funny the first few times you hear them, but they're repeated that they get tiresome rather quickly. The sound effects are fine, while the music is actually kind of relaxing. The soundtrack fits in fine with the dreamlike state of the levels, but it doesn't elicit a sense of panic when the princess closes in on you. The tempo increases, but using a different track altogether would've better conveyed the mood.

Mushroom Men: Truffle Trouble can be best described as a game with a good idea that's buried under sloppy execution. Giving the puzzle platformer a chase mechanic works well, and the option to turn off that part accommodates those who wish to deal with the puzzles in a less stressful environment. While there are a few elements that fail to make the game more exciting, the controls bring down the game significantly, and the presentation can also be too aggressive in some segments. There is the potential to patch some of this stuff later on, but as it stands right now, it is pretty tough to recommend Truffle Trouble to puzzle platform enthusiasts.

Score: 6.0/10