Sludge Life was definitely the weirdest title I played at PAX East a few weeks ago, but it was also the most charming. Even though you’re exploring an ooze-filled city, you are also presented with a blurry, pixelated art style that fits into its strange world.

In Sludge Life, you are a tagger who is trying to spray up all the hot spots throughout this mutated city while running into kooky characters along the way. When exploring throughout the city, you can climb any structure, but for some there are specific places that you have to find to be able to tag objects which are colored yellow. For pure exploration buffs, you will see new tag locations and think to yourself, “how do I get there?” This encourages you to search more and more in a continuous fun-filled loop. Even with my 30 minute play time, there is so much to see in Sludge Life, and it felt like I saw so much when I only experienced a small portion of the map.

What makes Sludge Life so charming is that it fully commits to what it is trying to be. It is weird, it is trippy, and there’s even a cat with two buttholes. Why? Who cares, that’s why. You even end up meeting a tagger who became the Ultimate Tagger to the point where he took out his own eyeballs which you later can use as a compass, directing you to whatever spot is closest to you. Sure, why not?

From what I’ve played, Sludge Life is a pretty straightforward game that lets you explore and tag spots, but with a strange setting and weird characters that you run into. It’s the type of game that I normally wouldn’t spend time playing, and I surely think it will not be for everyone. But with all the pieces that have been put into place so far, I think it might be up my alley. While I didn’t get a real taste of it, there will also be a storyline involved with three different endings that are dependent on what you do in the game.

[pullquote]"What makes Sludge Life so charming is that it fully commits to what it is trying to be. It is weird, it is trippy, and there’s even a cat with two buttholes."[/pullquote]

Devolver Digital in the past has published a wide variety of different indie titles but nothing remotely like Sludge Life, which is why I think they continue to be so successful. None of their games are like one another, making their games attractive to a bunch of different audiences. Sludge Life continues that tradition by bringing a new experience under their umbrella.

Sludge Life releases this year on Nintendo Switch and PC, exclusively on the Epic Games Store.