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Cute Local Game Alert!

By James Renovitch, 11:00AM, Sat. Sep. 3, 2011

Is it harder to fight in high heels or bunny slippers?
Is it harder to fight in high heels or bunny slippers?
The names alone wreak of unicorns, fluffy bunnies, and glitter. Teddy Tumble and Pajamorama were both developed locally and unabashedly slather on the cuteness. And at a dollar a piece, that's some bargain basement preciousness.
One-man developing studio Dannobot Games released Pajamorama to the Xbox Live Indie Games channel last month to little to no fanfare (pretty standard for Xbox's indie releases). If you can manage to find the Indie Games page – no mean feat – look for the feather strewn pink cover. The game's most obvious inspiration is Super Smash Bros. with its anarchic fighting style that splits the difference between a party game and a fighting game. Pajamorama has the party portion of the equation down cold with pillow-fight inspired brawling in such exotic locations as outer space, a rubber ducky, and a birthday cake. The fighters themselves lean toward the softcore end of the sexy spectrum with comically bouncing breasts and even a book-throwing and decidedly unrepressed librarian named Merlot. The fighting controls aren't tight enough to make for an altogether fulfilling two-player, head-to-head battle, but with three or four ladies in the arena it's button-mashing at its best. You should also check out Dannobot's previous Xbox Indie, Opposites, that rotates Tetris into a two-player battle.

Moving to the more-accessible App Store is D7 Games' Teddy Tumble. Throwing a teddy bear into a dryer may be cuteness overload, but the game mechanics are solid with the interface involving little more than spinning the circular levels using gravity to get the otherwise useless plush companion to the exit. The urge to tilt your iPhone in an attempt to redirect gravity is strong which says something about the compelling nature of the game. Of course tilting would make the game too easy and therefore does nothing more than confuse the situation. Once you steady your hand, the science of rolling, launching, and bumping your bear around the screen starts to become second nature. And with 90 levels divided into sections with unique tools, there's lots of time to perfect those skills. The social network integration seems like a no-brainer these days, but D7 does it well and doesn't force the issue.

The only warning we might give is to not play both games in rapid succession lest you start crapping rainbows and belching springtime. It happens.

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