As soon as you meet The Maw’s characters you will be hooked. Not only is the concept original and the characters bursting with personality, but the creativeness and charm that the game exudes will captivate you for the duration of the game and leave you wanting maw.

The game begins with an alien named Frank being detained in a spaceship along with various other rather suspicious looking creatures. Soon afterwards the ship crash lands on an unfamiliar planet and he finds himself alone with a strange creature that could best be described as a cute pink blob with a large eye.

Frank stumbles upon a plasma leash which he hooks up to The Maw, the aforementioned cute pink blob, before setting out to escape the planet that the unlikely pair have found themselves on. As cute as The Maw looks, his insatiable appetite actually makes him quite dangerous, something Frank discovers soon after petting a cuddly creature known as a Yum which The Maw quickly chomps right out of his arms without a second thought.

The control mechanism is simple and easy to pick up. Players press X to hook the plasma leash to The Maw or B to attach it to other creatures or objects. Once The Maw is leashed he will follow Frank around complacently, trusting him implicitly that he is leading him in the right direction and, perhaps more importantly, that he will feed him. If The Maw is too far away for Frank to leash him, then Frank will call for him. This is the only voice-over in the whole game and it works effectively, reminding me of the way in which the boy Ico called Yorda in the classic PS2 game Ico.

To feed The Maw players can either lead him to a creature, which he will eat greedily, or you can grab the next item on the breakfast or lunch menu using B and toss it to The Maw by pressing A, who will gladly gulp it down in much the same manner as you might toss a sardine to an eager seal. What you will soon discover after feeding The Maw a few creatures is that after the feeding frenzy he (it?) will grow in size, an action that is made all the more hilarious by his excitement and laughter at his newfound greatness.

As mentioned earlier, there are no voice-overs in the game but the sound effects and music are excellent and are more than enough to convey the characters feelings and thoughts to the player. I would never have thought it possible for one large eye to correctly convey so many expressions so effectively. It is quite easy to tell when The Maw is happy, apart from his partly sadistic laugh, his eye will glint excitedly, while when he is scared, not only does he cower behind any available object, but his eye will quiver just a little bit too. In fact, The Maw reminds me a lot of an excited puppy, eager to please and bounding over exuberantly whenever you call him. Except this puppy has a crazy grin etched between his razor-sharp teeth.

In order to proceed through the game, Frank and The Maw will have to work together to solve puzzles. Apart from learning that The Maw grows when you feed him, players will quickly discover that The Maw also gains the abilities of creatures that he eats, in much the same manner as Kirby does. For example, if he eats a fiery Gastro lizard he will be able to breathe fire and if he gobbles up a Beetull he will be able to crash through things. Not only will you have to solve puzzles, but you will also often first have to figure out which abilities The Maw will need to possess in order to solve a particular puzzle and he will also have to achieve a certain size before you can proceed to the next level.

While the puzzles are challenging and will have you scratching your head a few times, they are by no means impossible and will sometimes just require a little thinking out of the box. I would urge you to take a bit of time and try to solve the puzzles yourself because the outcome will be more rewarding that way.

In addition to using The Maw’s newly acquired abilities to solve some of the puzzles, you will often need to take a look around at the creatures in the environment. Sometimes you may need to grab a creature using B, press A to pull that creature and then press Y to spin it before releasing the button to throw the creature at a target. You will also face various enemies along the way – apart from the crazy creatures that are sometimes less than friendly, you will also find yourself coming face to face with machine guns, bounty hunters armed with weapons as well as power shields activated by generators.

Frank is also able to dodge incoming fire, press A when prompted to do so on-screen and time will slow down as he dodges the bullet. Be sure to leave The Maw behind when navigating heavy fire because his whimpering when he is under attack is bound to leave you feeling like a negligent pet owner.

The environment of the game is vibrant and incredibly detailed. Every aspect of the game is so imaginative that you will find yourself wanting to discover each secret and eat every creature possible. The gameplay is so varied that you will burn trees, and anything that gets in your way, float on wind tunnels, destroy shrubbery by slamming, fly through the air or bump along behind a giant charging Beetull.

I only have two criticisms about the game and the first one is that it could have been a bit longer because by the end of the game you still want more. With just eight levels you will probably join me in hoping that Twisted Pixel releases some downloadable content soon to satisfy our craving for maw action. However, with that being said, 800 points for the game is very reasonable for a good few hours of gaming pleasure. Secondly, I found the Beetull steering to be very challenging and a bit frustrating, in fact it was downright difficult sometimes to get him to go where I wanted him to go with the end result of him thumping into quite a number of walls.

As you play through the game you can also look forward to unlocking two gamerpictures and possibly a few very creative achievements. I found myself wanting to replay certain levels to achieve ‘100% eaten’ on each level and to unlock the extra achievements. Completing the game will also earn you a premium theme for free.

Overall The Maw is an outstanding product, well polished and radiating originality with endearing characters that will remain in your mind long after the game has finished. I would highly recommend you give the game a try, it is an adventure that you will not regret.

Pros: Challenging puzzles; creative and funny; short load times; premium theme plus gamer pictures for free; great music; simple control scheme.

Cons: Too short; Beetull steering can be difficult.

Purchase: