Ruffy and the Riverside reviewRuffy and the Riverside Review – Swap ‘Til You Drop
https://www.geeksvsgeeks.com/2025/06/ruffy-and-riverside-reviewruffy-and.html
A Waterfall, a Thought, and a Lava Shortcut
You find yourself stuck at a broken bridge, the small island across looms across a river too wide to jump but you don't dare to swim across. The sun glints off the water below, and your bee companion Pip buzzes around impatiently. There’s no obvious solution—until a lightbulb moment strikes. You raise your swap device, scan the shimmering water, in the distance a smoking volcano, quickly you copy and paste its molten lava right into the river which turns into a hot lava stream. Instantly, the supports buckle, shifting the platform just enough to make the leap.
Welcome to Ruffy and the Riverside, a game where the answer to every problem might be just a creative copy-paste away. This game isn’t just about platforming or puzzles. It’s about experimentation, spontaneity, and the joy of making the world your own—sometimes literally painting it in colors that don’t exist yet.
So, What Is Ruffy and the Riverside?
Developed by Zockrates Laboratories and published by Phiphen Games, Ruffy and the Riverside is a 3D action-adventure platformer with 2D inhabitants where you play as the lead character Ruffy. As the chosen one, you have the magical power to swap the elements of the world around you. You were trained to simply copy and past paintings for needy customers but soon you discover you are not limited to mere art, no you can copy almost anything. Need a ladder where there is none? copy/paste some vines. Need floating platforms? Change stone to wood. Lava got you down? Make it water and have as swim.
Beyond this mechanical gimmick lies a heartfelt tale of a small bear on a big mission. Ruffy, an adorable, pencil-colored hero, is accompanied by his snarky bee buddy Pip and guided by the gruff-yet-wise mole Sir Eddler. After a mysterious gem appears you end up accidentally unleashing a cube-shaped menace named Groll. Groll quickly goes on a rampage destroying Riverside and now it is up to Ruffy to restore balance to the world by collecting six sacred letters to revive the World Core and save the land of Riverside.
It all sounds like Saturday morning cartoon fare—and that’s exactly the charm. The game is equal parts whimsical adventure and inventive sandbox. The map is large and you can roam around freely, only limited in going some areas because you are missing skills or context. However the game allows you a lot freedom to either dive straight into the story or just roam around and play.
Gameplay: Where Creativity Meets Challenge
At the heart of Ruffy and the Riverside is a simple idea turned charmingly creative: the SWAP mechanic. Think of it like the world’s most powerful scrapbook tool—one that lets you not only copy a material’s look but also its properties. Water, lava, vines, wood, stone—it’s all yours to manipulate. With the push of a button, you can transform a lake into a lethal lava pit, turn a waterfall into a climbable wall, or turn cold steel platforms into bouncy bark. The boundaries of what’s possible quite bendy and playful.
“The joy of experimentation is endless, and much of the game invites you to simply see what you can get away with.”
The game doesn’t always tell you what to do and that’s intentional. The game is loaded with puzzles that are often environmental challenges that rely on thinking outside the box. Sometimes that means trying the most obvious solution, failing, and then trying something wildly weird that just so happens to work. Ruffy rewards curiosity more than perfection, and that’s a rare thing in modern platformers outside only the top tier franchises.
Pip, your buzzing bee buddy, adds layers to traversal. His gliding boost turns Ruffy’s already satisfying platforming into something floaty and expressive. Running, jumping, punching, and gliding all feel responsive, though there’s a loose, momentum-based quality to the movement that might throw precision platforming veterans off a little.
There is combat in the game, but it is not the star of this tale. You’ll bop a few enemies here and there, but the meat of the game lies in solving, collecting, and swapping. Still, it’s satisfying to use your charge punch to clear out groups or to creatively “solve” enemies by turning their environment against them. (One shark in particular met an ironic end when I turned his pool into a pool of lava.)
The world is packed with activities:
Butterfly gauntlets where one hit sends you back to try again.
Hay bale races that actively encourage you to cheat by placing swap obstacles.
Puzzle shrines with dot connections, tile swapping, and classic symbol-matching challenges and more
“Players can change color palettes, pixel density, or even entire surface patterns. Want a neon ocean or low-fi sand? You can do that.”
The cream on top of all this together is a personalized INGAME world-editing system. Using collected Pattern Stones, players can go into the Drawing Board to change not just the terrain’s material, but its artistic look—adjusting pixel density, color schemes, and surface patterns. It’s not just a world you play in—it’s one you curate. Want a candy-pink jungle with checkerboard water? Go for it. It’s an indie platformer meets MS Paint in the best way possible. And if you don't care for it or temporarily need it to go back to normal then you can turn it off with a simple check mark.
Despite all these fun things the game brings, some hiccups exist. Certain puzzles suffer from unclear logic or lack of direction, leading to a bit of aimless wandering. Fortunately, these are balanced by frequent eureka moments that make you feel clever rather than punished. And if you get stuck? You can spend your hard-earned in game coins to bypass a challenge, keeping the game moving at your own pace.
At the heart of Ruffy and the Riverside is a simple idea turned charmingly creative: the SWAP mechanic. Think of it like the world’s most powerful scrapbook tool—one that lets you not only copy a material’s look but also its properties. Water, lava, vines, wood, stone—it’s all yours to manipulate. With the push of a button, you can transform a lake into a lethal lava pit, turn a waterfall into a climbable wall, or turn cold steel platforms into bouncy bark. The boundaries of what’s possible quite bendy and playful.
“The joy of experimentation is endless, and much of the game invites you to simply see what you can get away with.”
The game doesn’t always tell you what to do and that’s intentional. The game is loaded with puzzles that are often environmental challenges that rely on thinking outside the box. Sometimes that means trying the most obvious solution, failing, and then trying something wildly weird that just so happens to work. Ruffy rewards curiosity more than perfection, and that’s a rare thing in modern platformers outside only the top tier franchises.
Pip, your buzzing bee buddy, adds layers to traversal. His gliding boost turns Ruffy’s already satisfying platforming into something floaty and expressive. Running, jumping, punching, and gliding all feel responsive, though there’s a loose, momentum-based quality to the movement that might throw precision platforming veterans off a little.
There is combat in the game, but it is not the star of this tale. You’ll bop a few enemies here and there, but the meat of the game lies in solving, collecting, and swapping. Still, it’s satisfying to use your charge punch to clear out groups or to creatively “solve” enemies by turning their environment against them. (One shark in particular met an ironic end when I turned his pool into a pool of lava.)
The world is packed with activities:
Butterfly gauntlets where one hit sends you back to try again.
Hay bale races that actively encourage you to cheat by placing swap obstacles.
Puzzle shrines with dot connections, tile swapping, and classic symbol-matching challenges and more
“Players can change color palettes, pixel density, or even entire surface patterns. Want a neon ocean or low-fi sand? You can do that.”
Despite all these fun things the game brings, some hiccups exist. Certain puzzles suffer from unclear logic or lack of direction, leading to a bit of aimless wandering. Fortunately, these are balanced by frequent eureka moments that make you feel clever rather than punished. And if you get stuck? You can spend your hard-earned in game coins to bypass a challenge, keeping the game moving at your own pace.
“Characters look like hand-drawn cutouts—thick outlines, crayon fills, and animated charm. It’s like if your childhood drawings suddenly sprang to life and started cracking jokes.”
Presentation: A Storybook World, Drawn by a Kid with TalentRuffy and the Riverside wears its art style like a badge of honor. Characters look hand-drawn with thick black outlines, marker strokes, and visible imperfections. the animations had to grow on me as they are low fps count and they create a weird effect against the high framerate environment. In fact I really disliked Ruffy's idle animation of his jazz hands/snappy fingers in the beginning , but it grew on me a little into the game as I gave in to the charm of the art style.
From a musical perspective, the game is surprisingly eclectic. The soundtrack blends various exciting tunes and different areas and situations have their own themes. There are even a few groovy tunes.
Presentation: A Storybook World, Drawn by a Kid with Talent“Characters look like hand-drawn cutouts—thick outlines, crayon fills, and animated charm. It’s like if your childhood drawings suddenly sprang to life and started cracking jokes.”
“the game keeps you coming back, not just for progress, but for the chance to tinker, customize, and reshape your surroundings on your own terms.”
Sound effects are punchy, light, and whimsical. Ruffy’s footsteps slap joyfully across sand and stone. There are no fully voice lines but each character does have its own vocalizations often in grunts, laughs or one worded sounds. the rest of their conversation takes place in text box form. It works, but full voicework would have worked really well with the cartoon style presentation.
Technically, the game does have some jank at times, there are some frame stutters, pop-in textures, and a rare background issue but overall the performance (we played on ps5) held up well. The overall tone feels a little messy, but intentionally so like those classic cartoons that are missing a few frames but can still makes you smile.
Despite these rough edges, Ruffy and the Riverside radiates charm. It has that one-more-thing quality that keeps you coming back, not just for progress, but for the chance to tinker, customize, and reshape your surroundings on your own terms. It’s a sandbox with rules, sure, but the tools it gives you feel more like a coloring book than a blueprint, a coloring book that lets you paint outside of the lines.
Parental thoughts
From a parental point of view, Ruffy and the Riverside is rated E for everyone and we feel the game is a solid pick for kids 8 and up, especially if they enjoy creative problem-solving and colorful characters. here’s no real violence beyond cartoon-style bonking and bashing, and the story is clean, humorous, and packed with good lessons about persistence and imagination.
That said, younger players might need a helping hand with the tougher puzzles. Some solutions aren’t obvious, and a few challenges can become frustrating.
Final Thoughts
Ruffy and the Riverside might look shallow on fist sight but if you take a moment and soak in the them you really soon discover it is more than just another indie-dime-a-dozen platformer. Despite its humble origins and lower budget the game is build on dreams and lofty goals to deliver a full fleshed out experience. It is a celebration of play, experimentation, and overall good vibes. Yes, it’s occasionally rough around the edges, but it more than makes up for it with heart and originality. It dares you to think differently and rewards you for trying.
Whether you’re a nostalgic adult looking for a fresh twist on the games you grew up with, or a younger player diving into platformers for the first time, Ruffy is a delightful guide through a world you can literally reshape with your imagination.
And that, in itself, is worth a copy-paste.
Ruffy and the Riverside gets a thumbs up because it’s a joyful, inventive platformer that celebrates creativity. Despite a few technical hiccups, the game’s charm, originality, and fun SWAP mechanic, and player-driven art customization it offers a genuinely fun experience in a genre that often plays it safe. It’s a heartfelt debut that dares players to think differently, laugh often, and paint the world in their own weird, wonderful colors.
Title: Ruffy and the Riverside
Developer: Zockrates Laboratories UG
Publisher: Phiphen Games
Platforms: PC (steam/EPIC), Playstation 5, XBOX One, XBOX Series X|S, Nintendo Switch
ESRB: E for Everyone
Release Date: June 26, 2025
MSRP : $19.99
About the writer: DadGeek (Rob) is the co-founder of GeeksVsGeeks. He is a product of the eighties and never let go of his geek interest and hobbies no matter how often someone told him to stop. His love for gaming and all things geeks has been part of his parenting style and permeates throughout the whole family. A family of Geeks vs Geeks
