Thank you PigeonDev for sending us this game to review!

There’s not much of a story in Awesome Pea. According to the Steam store page, the main character, a Pea, is quite greedy and is willing to risk his life to gather every gold coin and diamond laying about on three islands. In total, there are thirty levels in this $3.99 title.

Of course, the gold and diamonds are heavily guarded by bubble-blowing frogs, rotating spikes, moving saw blades, and ghost-like floating skulls. Unfortunately, the greedy Pea has no offensive moves, just the ability to jump and double-jump.

Though there are three islands, most of the ten Steam achievements can be unlocked before completing the first one. The difficulty is extremely hit-or-miss in this game. Some of the levels I’ve breezed through in 5 minutes or less while others have taken me many deaths and days to finish. The train level stumped me and my kids for several days and once I completed that level, I breezed through the next two in ten minutes or so.

While most of my deaths felt deserved or earned, there are many that felt cheap or inconsistent. For example, there are lots of narrow platforms which have spikes on the sides of them or saw blades beneath them if you miscalculate their jump. If your body is 90% on the platform and 10% over the smooth side of a spike, that will kill your Pea. To add insult to injury, there are no checkpoints so you have to start at the very beginning of the level and try again. Or rage quit.

Needless to say, I enjoyed this title in short spurts. I can’t deny that it’s both frustrating and fun as I keep coming back for more punishment/accomplishment. While this game oozes retro charm, the effects are inaccurate for a classic Game Boy which never suffered from CRT or television tube effects. If you’re not a fan of those antiquating effects, they can be disabled in the menu thanks to the 1.2 game patch.

The sound effects are well done and I like the background chiptune music. The chip sound played for the Pea’s death is fitting and doesn’t get annoying despite hearing it quite often.

Like many platform games there is cartoon-style violence as the Pea can be killed by water, spikes, bubbles, ghosts, frogs, and saw blades.

If you like to speedrun, Awesome Pea has you covered as each level times you on how long it took you to complete it. Thankfully, there are infinite lives so you don’t have to worry about losing any progress. Once a level is completed you can advance to the next one or go back and improve a previous score. The asking price is a reasonable $3.99, but I have seen it as low as $1.59 during a Steam sale. If you like challenging platform games it may be worth picking up.