Ruffy and the Riverside is the perfect blend of creativity and nostalgia
It was while I was stuck on an island, swapping the water’s texture with lava from a nearby volcano to destroy wooden crates so I could climb to a collectable Adventure Star, that I realised just how much fun I was having in Ruffy and the Riverside. Developed by the German studio Zockrates Laboratories, the game exudes a sense of charm, nostalgia, and playful creativity.
Set in the colourful, open world of Riverside, you play as Ruffy, a bear, as he embarks on a mission to stop the villainous Groll from destroying the World Core and throwing Riverside into chaos. Along the way, you’ll team up with a cast of quirky characters, explore vibrant landscapes, and solve puzzles using Ruffy and the Riverside’s standout feature – the SWAP mechanic. This unique system allows you to scan the environment and copy-paste textures from one object to another to manipulate the world around you.
My demo began with a dramatic drop off a waterfall. Ruffy and his friends called for help as they plummeted, and the solution was clear: copy the texture of a nearby vine and paste it onto the waterfall to create a climbable surface. Ruffy and the Riverside is filled with moments like this that showcase the game’s creativity and freedom of the SWAP mechanic, and it quickly became the highlight of my experience because of this. I quickly found myself swapping everything: turning water into sand, crates into stone, and even lava into water to alter the environment in unexpected ways.
A puzzling and bustling town
In my time with the demo, I was pushed by Ruffy’s friend Sir Eddler to collect Adventure Stars to open doors to “distant places”. Ruffy and the Riverside is open world, but for the demo, I could only explore half of the world’s main village and some of its surrounding environment. The main settlement was a bustling medieval-themed village filled with bears like Ruffy who roamed the streets as well as several NPCs.
One, a scholarly fox named Quintus, tasked me with collecting butterflies across Riverside and cataloguing them in an in-game encyclopedia. Meanwhile, Master Qwin, a painter, gave me a job swapping artwork textures for his customers – flowers for one, sunsets for another, and animals for a third – in exchange for an Adventure Star. A third NPC pushed me to recreate a pattern painted on a wall by transforming boulders into wooden crates and smashing them.
Between solving these puzzles, I scaled the rooftops of the town to collect butterflies and took in the unique charm of Riverside. It’s a gorgeous, colourful, and fun 3D world, while its characters all take on a 2D cutout appearance similar to Paper Mario. Meanwhile, outside of the town were several more puzzles to solve. An artist wanted me to recreate a pattern painted on a wall onto a nearby shrine for an Adventure Star, another puzzle required me to match the colour of two Mario-styled warp pipes for a fourth Star located in a high cave, and a final puzzle required me to enter 2D-designed side-scrolling graffiti art and defeat the monster within it by swapping its pool of water for lava to earn a fifth Adventure Star.
Although I only explored a small section of Riverside, there was still plenty to find, puzzles to solve, and a lot to explore, and I’m very eager to see what the complete town and wider world will be like.
Exploring the world of Riverside
By the time I decided to step through the first locked door, I had already collected several Adventure Stars. The doors seemingly transported me to areas around the world of Riverside. The first whisked me to a remote beach near a jungle, where new dangers and puzzles awaited. Giant statues shot fireballs at me as I smashed crates and dodged stomping traps. I eventually bumped into Sir Eddler, who pointed me in the direction of an Adventure Star located at the top of a waterfall, which I climbed by swapping its texture for vines. At one point I found myself sinking in quicksand after swapping a river’s water texture with sand in a failed attempt to unlock a chest.
The second door led to a different beach area, where I found a collectable Etoi animal, a butterfly accessed by platforming across ice sheets to an island, and jumped across moving platforms to an Adventure Star. A highlight of the area was spotting an Adventure Star floating out in the distance on a large column, with several stacked stone platforms leading out to it from an Island. Ruffy can’t swim, so I had to climb a nearby watchtower, paraglide towards the island, and swap the water around the stone to lava from a nearby volcano before transforming the stone columns into wooden crates that the lava promptly destroyed, clearing my path to the star.
The penultimate door whisked me to the Steep Games, a competition-style area filled with mini-games, although only one was accessible. In the challenge, I rode hay bales up and down a U-shaped ramp and performed tricks to earn points for Adventure Stars. It was fun, difficult, and hilarious, reminding me of the mini-games from Crash Bandicoot and Spyro. Seeing Ruffy flail around while trying to perform a series of tricks was a perfect break from puzzle-solving.
With enough Adventure Stars collected, I unlocked the final door of the demo, triggering a cutscene and ending my time with Ruffy and the Riverside.
Charm, love, and lots of fun
After playing the demo twice, I can confidently say that Ruffy and the Riverside is shaping up to be something special. The game’s combination of open world exploration, puzzle platforming, and the innovative SWAP mechanic sets it apart from other games in the genre. Zockrates Laboratories has clearly poured a lot of love into creating a world filled with charm, fun characters, and inventive puzzles.
The SWAP mechanic adds a layer of creativity and player freedom that most platformers lack. It’s a joy to experiment with, and I’m excited to see how it evolves throughout the full game in addition to aspects I haven’t tried. I’ve been left eager to explore more of the world and uncover what other secrets and SWAP opportunities it holds.
Ruffy and the Riverside will be released in 2025 for PC via Steam, Xbox One and Series consoles, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch(es).
