In the future, a mad scientist named Professor Lupo collects a menagerie of killer alien creatures (his horrible pets) and houses them aboard a space station orbiting Earth.  He plans on auctioning them off as weapons to the highest bidder, but before the first bid can start, the space station is attacked by unknown forces.  You play as an intern who is normally just bait for these creatures, but now you must try to escape the crumbling space station all the while avoiding alien monsters in this action puzzle game.  It’s downloadable on Switch and PC, but reviewed on Switch here.

Each level is a little maze, and there are usually killer alien creatures roving about.  You must try and figure out their movement patterns so you can avoid them while flipping switches to open doors that can create paths for you and trap the alien creatures so you can make it to the exit.  In most levels is a hidden object for you to try and collect, too, but it is usually much harder to nab.

There are two ways to control your character in the game.  The traditional way has you using the right JoyCon as a pointer and you click on switches to activate them and tap on spaces where you want the intern to go.  The better way to control is called ‘Focus Mode’ where you press the select button and you can control the intern directly with the left analog stick and flip switches near you with the action button.  Which makes sense anyway because you can only flip switches that you’re close to anyway.

The main problem I had with this game is that your movement speed is SO SLOW!  For someone who is trying to escape killer aliens and an exploding spaceship, your character moves like he just woke up and is shuffling around.  No sense of urgency, just like a real intern (just joking).  But this slow movement really affects the gameplay and makes it really tough to avoid the aliens effectively.  And the game gets real hard, real fast.  If you die a bunch of times, they turn on an infrared mode that lets you see the enemies’ movements, but it doesn’t help matters.  Plus the Portal style humor falls flat most of the time.  But if you enjoy puzzle maze games like Adventures of Lolo and want a real challenge, then you may want to take on Professor Lupo’s horrible pets.

Kid Factor:

Professor Lupo and his Horrible Pets is rated E-10 with ESRB descriptors of Fantasy Violence and Mild Language.  When you get hit by an alien, you’ll scream and do a little death animation, but before things get too gory, the screen will splat with a green goo before starting the level over again.  The text does have some cursing here and there, too.  Reading skill is needed, and younger gamers may get frustrated at the high challenge level.

Tags: Game Reviews