I first heard about The Maw last year at the 2008 Penny Arcade Expo, a show that tends to showcase a good amount of indie games, and this year, it just so happened that The Maw was the recipient of the Audience Choice Award.

The Maw was created by Twisted Pixel, a team consisting of eleven people, and took nine months to complete. It’s also a great addition to the 3D platforming genre, a genre that’s been going through a rough patch lately.

The game makes use of a unique concept that hasn’t been seen in any game before. At the start of the game Frank, the main protagonist, has been taken captive on an alien ship where he meets a cute little purple one-eyed blob who he names “maw.” The ship then crashes on an alien planet, leaving him and the maw to team up and explore this planet. Frank then discovers the electric letch, which is used throughout the entire game as a leash for the maw, and as a device to grab on and throw other objects.

The main idea behind the game is that the maw is hungry, and he’ll basically eat anything that’s alive, but the maw isn’t smart, he’s like a little puppy and he needs guidance.

And that’s where you come in.

You use the letch to bring him around to eat things, which sounds pretty easy, but you also need to make sure that the things he tries to eat it are in fact edible. Sometimes in order to allow him to eat certain things, you’ll need to do things before hand, like break the shell off of a slug or hose down the flame lizards in order to extinguish their fire hides.

With each creature that he eats, the maw gets bigger and before you know it, he’s twice as big as you! (But don’t worry, he won’t eat you.) The maw can also copy the abilities of the creatures he eats, which you need to do in each level before you can beat it. He can transform into a flame maw, a shocker maw or even a flying maw, which makes the copy ability spice up the gameplay. Sometimes you have to separate from your pet alien, but don’t worry you can always call him and have him come to you. Once in a while he will get stuck, and you’ll have to move before he can get free. In one situation, I had the game glitch on me and I wasn’t able to move, so I had to restart the game.

The game is very easy and rather very linear; each level has the same goal: find out how to eat the special ability creature and use that power to eat all other creatures before you can go to the next level. Each level looks the same graphically, but offers something different and new to keep the game flowing.

The game is really short. You can finish it in a afternoon and it offers little replay value since it’s single player game only, and the achievements are easily attained during the first play through. With that said, I think The Maw is a great family game; something both kids and parent will enjoy playing. Those who are looking for something along the lines of a Banjo-Kazooie should keep looking, because it doesn’t have that much depth to it, but if you like to try out new things, I’d highly recommend you try out the demo at the very least.

By Neelix