A kindly grandma – a babushka – is taking the time to tidy up her home. She goes to clean up her cellar, and ruh-roh, it’s a mess of glitchy otherworldly artifacts, strange magics and weirdos. Well, that’s just how chore days be. Will you guide the dear babushka in her normal quest of cleaning things up?

Babushka’s Glitch Dungeon is a short puzzle-platformer by petsclub2 and it’s all about cleaning up a cellar. And, well, maybe clean up the world, too. Some other old ladies are down in the dungeon connected to that cellar, and it’d be neighborly to help them out and deal with dark magic while you’re at it, wouldn’t you say?

The most notable trait of Babushka’s Glitch Dungeon is right there in the name – the visuals are glitchy as hell. Beyond the messy noise tiles that the babushka can wipe away with her broom, there’s small shifts in ground tiles if you pay close enough attention. Switch to a different color and the whole color palette of the map changes. When you’re in a situation to switch back and forth between powers multiple times, the color shifting makes for a nice light show. It’s strong enough to leave an impression, but I don’t think it’s strong enough to be a danger to the epilleptic.

I also kinda wish the soundtrack was something glitchy or some breakcore, but for the most part, it’s calm stuff you may expect from an ordinary platformer. Besides, it makes for a nice contrast and reminds you that at its core, the game’s just about a granny cleaning things up at its core.

So, those powers! Besides having a broom to whack things, you can get powers through interacting with totems. In a way, they all fit within the glitch theming of the game. The high jump/slow fall power can be seen as a manipulation of a game’s gravity. The air walking power follows a similar mindset, where the game forgets that you have to drop to the ground when you walk off an edge until you jump. There’s a nice wall climbing power that lets you treat walls as another floor. Then there’s ghost, which lets you clip through things that’d normally kill you.

The ghost power is kinda boring, but I thought it was super fun to play around with the powers. I love walking in mid-air to a wall so I can slide up it. Playing with the powers gets more fun when you see how they interact with specific level mechanics that you have to puzzle your way through. My favorite area was one where statues of a specific power come to life to mirror your movements when you have that power active, and you have to constantly switch powers to arrange the statues to use as a ladder while avoiding getting killed by your other selves.

For some more cutthroat puzzle-platformer action, there’s boss battles! You have use your powers to avoid whatever bullshit the boss throws at you until the weakpoint is exposed. Babushka’s Puzzle Dungeon is aware that players might not expect high energy stuff though, so it actually offers an item that slows down boss movement, which is pretty nice. Besides, players still have the goal of seeking out the optional Angel Egg collectables as a slower-paced challenge on hand.

Honestly? I don’t have a lot more to say about Babushka’s Glitch Dungeon. It’s one of those short and sweet rides. Do I have any complaints? Uhhh, I think the ghost power is boring and just really situational, but that’s kinda it. If you want a short time killer and/or want to be a funny little babushka in a dungeon with funny little people, this is the game for you.