KarmaZoo Review

How did the pear, the koala, the armadillo, the frog, and the owl cross the road? It sounds like the opening to a joke, and you’ll undoubtedly have a few laughs along the way, but the only real answer I can give you is ‘by winging it’. Helping others may be the intended theme for KarmaZoo, but it turns out that here at TheGamer, our little band of misfits was channelling chaotic good vibes instead as we floundered our way to any victories earned and repeatedly laughed as the pear failed to catch up with the rest of us.

KarmaZoo challenges players to navigate a series of platformer levels by working with others. Each player can take on a different form that gives them various skills, and the levels adapt and change depending on the party makeup. For example, if someone in the group is an armadillo, adept at walking over spikes, there will be more spikes for the party to overcome. The random nature of the levels combined with different party setups ensures that every loop sequence of levels is unique — although as five of us played together with just one form unlocked each, we happened upon a couple of repeats.

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The way the gameplay evolves depending on the chosen avatars is both a blessing and a curse. When you start, you don’t have enough karma points to buy other forms, so you’re just little blobs that can scream and not much else. It wasn’t too bad having a more bland run at first, as we were all getting used to the mechanics and how best to work together. Later levels saw some impressive mechanics thrown at us, such as laser eyes that periodically zap you if you’re moving, or a level where you had to share an electrical charge between light bulbs.

Some levels were tricky, requiring you to time things in unison, find keys and pair them with the requisite locks, or solve different puzzles, all while trying to ensure no one is left alone so their bubble halo doesn’t pop (and kill them), and that you complete the level within the timeframe. Sometimes, our downfall was of our own making. One platform we had to sing at to make it move was boobytrapped with a laser eye that killed anyone singing or moving. Every time someone died, we let the platform return to regroup. Only after we realised other platforms were ascending to help anyone who died return to the group. Silly us.

We opted to play together while chatting on Discord. This isn’t how the game is intended to be played, but the best comparison I can make is to liken KarmaZoo to Among Us. Playing with randoms with no voice chat makes it more challenging, but it still can be fun. Playing with friends on voice chat makes it easier and infinitely more hilarious. It’s the perfect kind of party game when played this way and is guaranteed to have your group laughing at each and every failure (and each other).

KarmaZoo is available for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PC, and Nintendo Switch. It also features Crossplay, so you can play with friends who own it on a different platform.

Even though we cheated (quite often) by using voice chat, we struggled to complete levels within the time limit, so I can assure you that trying to work in tandem with randoms you can’t communicate with makes it more frustrating. For a game about karma and lots of zen vibes, it can certainly lead to a lot of game rage if you are close to completing a level, but one oblivious player stops you from succeeding.

You can unlock emotes to communicate with others, but they don’t help as much as you’d like. As I mentioned before, even with voice chat, we often ran out of time, so trying to mime out instructions with a mixture of emojis wouldn’t speed things along any. It’s sometimes best to leave ailing players to their doom so that the team as a whole can reach the end.

The first loop we completed gave us enough karma to unlock one extra form, but karma farming was a chore after that. You’d have to play countless games to earn enough points to unlock the best forms in the game. Even unlocking the next tier of avatars up from our ragtag bunch of basics felt so far out of reach. There were so many layers of locked content. Literally, there were locks on areas to open up another area to unlock more things. Don’t even get me started on the constellation progression, which has you grinding out tasks on specific avatars to unlock more things. Is this karma punishing me for laughing at the pear?

Mixing it up with different forms is part of the fun, so having most of these locked behind one hell of a grind is KarmaZoo’s biggest disappointment. Repeating loop after loop with the same handful of forms grew a little tiresome, even with slight changes in level design, so it got old fast to rinse and repeat with friends to earn points. This is where playing with randoms helps to spice it up a bit, as you get a wider range of party members to experience more mechanics and avatars. Still, then you’re sacrificing the ability to communicate well.

There’s also a party game mode called Totem, with a small selection of different minigames that have you competing to win against the others rather than working alongside them. The main Loop mode was far more enjoyable, but we got a few laughs out of Totem, even when it didn’t mean to be funny. I was the sole survivor racing to the finish line in one game, but I missed it on my way past, falling beyond the edge of the post. I was stuck in a hole and struggled to jump back up for the longest time, while my colleagues were doomed to watch me fail repeatedly in ghost form. Naturally, when I did win, I accepted my victory with the utmost grace.

There’s an undeniable charm about KarmaZoo. The pixel characters and the way they dance and sing, the randomness of the chosen avatar designs and how they work, and how you can work together — or fail together — with hilarious outcomes. The game leans into the joviality of it all by throwing in funny cards you can select at the start of each level to mix things up a little. Things might be darker, you can make everyone a whale, and some cards do absolutely nothing. We chose ‘Guest Drummer’ only to find this added some drum noise to the music for that level. Voting which card to choose became one of the best bits, and we scoured each level for fruit to ensure we unlocked as many cards as possible.

KarmaZoo’s creativity and ingenuity make it incredibly appealing, especially when layered with its humorous character and charm. However, whether you can stick it out for the long haul to enjoy the game at its fullest is another matter entirely. There is plenty to love and I’d recommend it for any social night, but I don’t think we would ever stick with it long enough to unlock even half the avatars.

One of the major selling points of KarmaZoo is that it's only $9.99 /£8.50.

KarmaZoo

Reviewed on PlayStation 5.

• Unique concept and core gameplay with clever level design.
• Fun gameplay that is especially hilarious when played with friends.
• Very charming style and humour.

• Very grindy.
• More difficult when playing with randoms.

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