GAME
OF THE
DAY
Squish Machine
Survive the squish!
Spikes—sharp and scary, aren’t they? Especially if you’re a squishy little blob liable to pop. That’s exactly the predicament you’re up against in Squish Machine, a quirky action puzzler that finds fun in death-defying tension.
Each level starts as a set of killer spikes begins to descend while a sister set rises from below. You’re in the middle, your only chance of survival being to hit a floating switch or two in order to halt the progress of these closing metal jaws.
What tools do you have to achieve this? Well, you can move left. Right too. And you can jump. Boy, can you jump.
Your infinite jumping abilities essentially give you the ability to fly in a jerky, stuttered manner, but you’ll have to use them wisely because it’s not just the spikes you’ve got to be wary of.
As you progress, levels become increasingly fiendish and fraught with risk. Soon you’ll be trying to avoid everything from swinging maces and malicious birds to vicious fires and laser cannons. It’s an obstacle course of mortality, one where you’ll inevitably put yourself in danger. At times on purpose.
That’s because Squish Machine dangles gold coins in front of you—usually in the hardest-to-reach parts of the level. You won’t be punished for shunning them, but the completist in you won’t want to finish a level without first collecting them all.
But just ask yourself: Is killing one squishy character 18 times worth earning a single coin towards unlocking a new one? Of course it is—now, watch that spike!