If you’ve got an afternoon and 10 bucks handy, you’ll find some quality entertainment here.
The game definitely dabbles with the requisite jumping across platforms and timing your movements to avoid dangerous obstacles that you’d expect in this type of game. But the main attraction in Cloning Clyde is the ability to clone yourself at a designated machine. You’ll need to use these clones to step on sequences of buttons so that the rest of the bunch can move on to the next area, for example. Or perhaps you’ll need to position one Clyde in a catapult and have another throw a switch to activate it.
Another variable in the mix is what type of Clyde you’re controlling. You’ll find a number of DNA mixing machines in your travels, often with an animal in the near vicinity, such as monkeys, chickens, frogs, and more. Each Clyde has a special ability – as frog Clyde, you’ll be able to swim much more quickly and without coming up for air; chicken Clyde can flap his arms and fly above trouble or to otherwise inaccessible areas.
There twenty some-odd main story levels to tackle, as well as a handful of challenge levels to finish up afterward. All told, it’ll probably take you a good four or five hours to get through Clyde, which seems like a fitting length for this game. A multiplayer mode allows you to take on an opposing team of Clydes, but it’s pretty passable.
With gaming getting more and more expensive and commercial, it’s great to see a truly indie production like Cloning Clyde surface with positive results. It’s got problems – namely your not being able to control a line of Clydes (particularly annoying in missions where you’re handling 15 or more and need to keep switching around) – but if you’ve got an afternoon and 10 bucks handy, you’ll find some quality entertainment here.