Mole Mania ($2.99): Join Muddy Mole in a race to defeat the evil farmer, Jinbe. Work your way through each puzzle by pushing, pulling, or throwing black balls to defeat or trap enemies. Blast strategic exits and burrow into soft soil to tunnel your way through underground paths to the next action-packed level. Defeat the bosses and solve all of the puzzles in Jinbe Land to reunite Muddy Mole with his beloved wife and kids. You'll dig the fast pace and challenging fun of Mole Mania!

Why not add Mole Mania to your collection, and indicate that you are currently playing it? And don't forget to rate it when you're done!

Negative Worlders who pledged to participate (will be bolded and colored once they post progress)
DrFinkelstein
rebonack
Renjaku
Triforcebun
anon_mastermind
Jargon
roykoopa64
nate38
Mop it up
Zero
GameDadGrant
HammerLord
Guillaume

Negative Worlders playing despite not pledging
chrisbg99
Poguesquadron
Ploot
kgtennispro
VofEscaflowne

List of Awesome (finish the game)
Renjaku
nate38
chrisbg99
ploot
roykoopa64
Triforcebun
Jargon
Mopitup
Rebonack

List of Awesomest (finish the game 100%)
Renjaku
nate38
chrisbg99
ploot
roykoopa64
Triforcebun
Jargon
Rebonack

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I guess it's Mole Mania, then! I will download it today, but I don't quite know if I'll get to it right away.

Will post my progress, though!

100% up to level 3.
I dislike the bonus levels. A lot.

Finished the first world. I genuinely chuckled when his kid came out of that giant cabbage. Cute game!

@ploot

Yeah, the bonus levels were a pain...but if you throw a cabbage at Jinbe, you can stun him momentarily and knock in a few cabbages if you're quick.

I'm liking it more right now. I especially like that in the first world, the rooms can connect to each other. I was not expecting that! I look forward to see how that mechanic develops.

Regarding getting all the points - do you only have one shot at getting 100 points per level? I think I took too long and so I only got 90 pts in the first level.

@PogueSquadron
I don't think timing counts toward points. You might be missing some cabbages or items. Go back to the level and see if you missed anything.

@ludist210
I try to hit him, I TRYYYYY!
I eventually beat him, but man.

@ploot Hmm I'll have to check again. I just swore that I got all 20 cabbages. There's 20 in each level right?

@PogueSquadron

Timing doesn't count for points...otherwise, my three hours in one of the later stages wouldn't net me squat! You get points for filling up all the rooms on the map, 20 for the Bonus Stage, 20 for getting all the cabbages (1 per cabbage), 10 for getting the map itself...oh, and 10 for getting the Mole Mania equivalent of the Compass, it's a radar-like item. I actually got 90 points on my first run through of level 1 because I missed the radar thing. The good news is that it's quite easy to re-get points, you just head back into the level and go nab what you missed. The puzzles are still completed as you left them.

Also, I definitely feel that this is a game that requires a little bit of tenacity in the beginning--for the first few rooms, I wasn't really sold on the concept, but it really comes together nicely and becomes quite challenging quickly. Lots of fun "ohhhh, got it!" moments like in Pushmo.

The bosses are really creative and use the game's mechanics as well too. I'm definitely going to get back into Mole Mania this weekend. So far, I've been getting 100s, although the mini-games are quite difficult! I kinda welcome the change of pace, myself.

@TriforceBun
I was actually going to come in here and mention that I feel this game is stronger than Pushmo. They're pretty different, but I still get a Pushmo vibe from it.
Of course, Pushmo had unlimited levels, but the mechanics in this are just so fun (once you get 'em down).

I was totally not sold on this game and sort of gave up on it halfway through level one. Thank goodness for the RGC!

4 stages in. Certainly fun though those bonus stages can go straight to hell.

@TriforceBun @PogueSquadron In the second level there are signs that explain exactly what you need to get in order to achieve 100 points, and yeah, I'm pretty sure time wasn't a part of it. It was cabbages, items, bonus stage, etc.

@chrisbg99 They can definitely be frustrating, but I'm glad you're not penalized for losing and you can try as many times as you want. (At least that's how it seems to me, I'm only on stage 2.)

Just finished the second level. That boss was kinda tough (at least it was because I had no idea what to do because I ignored that sign; once I went back and read the sign I beat him very quickly). Two stages down with 100 points each.

Beat level 1. It took me a while to get that balls can go past holes if you stand on the hole and throw the ball backwards.

Cool! I'm looking forward to starting this game soon. The Internet is down at my house so I'll have to wait until its back up before I download it and participate in some Mole Mania.

Just beat the sun boss.. Not exactly sure what I did differently this time but he went down. I've gotten into a good rhythm with this, so we'll see how much harder it gets.

@PogueSquadron Yeah I just finished that too. I guess you have to knock it into the water on the sides of the stage. I also wasn't sure what to do, but I guess that was the right method.

@nate38 @PogueSquadron Yeah, you have to knock him into the water. There's a sign that tells you that if you dig into the hole in the screen before the boss, and that's the only way I knew what to do

I think I'm looking at Master Roshi whenever I see old mole.

@rebonack Oh wow, I had no idea that was even water. The only sign I saw was the one about his blinding light.

Level 3 feels soooo long. Some tough ones in here! It's a real shame that this version doesn't include the Super Gameboy Enhancements. It'd be so ridiculously easy to implement for Nintendo.

@rebonack Haha, I found a sign in the third stage that told how to beat its boss, but I didn't see one for the second stage. I feel a little spoiled for reading it, I think that would have been more fun to figure out on my own.

Level 3 took me almost an hour to beat and 100%. You sure get your money's worth for $3.

I think it was Ploo who said it reminded him of Pushmo. I definitely get that vibe at the beginning, particularly in regards to the idea of introducing a new mechanic and then playing around with it.

At the same time, this game is way more like Zelda than I thought it would be. I guess that was to be expected in regards to Miyamoto's involvement and the game's usage of the Link's Awakening engine, but I'm still a little surprised. You could easily swap Muddy the Mole with Link and the Mole Mitts, and the game would feel like one long Zelda dungeon. While these aren't exactly my favorite kinds of Zelda puzzles, it's still interesting to see how the game develops. I'm liking it way more than I did when I started. Thanks for introducing it to me!

(And I did wind up getting Wario Land anyway since it was only a dollar to finish up my balance )