Ugly on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information
Unravel the dark secrets hidden throughout this stirring puzzle platformer about a tormented nobleman confronting the traumas of his past. Use an innovative mirror mechanic to solve challenging puzzle rooms and defeat towering bosses as you strive to piece together the ugly truth.
Ugly is a 2d platformer, puzzle-platformer and puzzle game
developed by Team Ugly
and published by Graffiti Games.
Released on September 13th 2023 is available only on Windows
in 13 languages: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish - Spain, Portuguese - Brazil, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Catalan, Japanese, Korean, Polish and Traditional Chinese.
It has received 477 reviews of which 457 were positive and 20 were negative resulting in a rating of 8.9 out of 10. 😎
The game is currently priced at 19.50€ on Steam, but you can find it for 2.55€ on Instant Gaming.
The Steam community has classified Ugly into these genres:
System requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- OS: Windows 10
- Processor: Requires a 64-bit, Dual Core 3.0GHz processor
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: DirectX 10, 11, or 12 compatible card
- Storage: 11 GB available space
User reviews & Ratings
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly If I could, I'd give this game a Mixed review. 3 out of 5 stars. Something like that. There were some parts that I really, really enjoyed, and there were also some parts that made me want to stop playing and run outside yelling. Most of my complaints are with the latter half of the game, but I will be discussing full-game spoilers, and I do recommend the game, so I'd recommend going and playing it to see if you like it. Okay, so first let's go over the positives: The Artistry The art, music, and general presentation of the game is easily its best aspect. The music is very gloomy and well-produced, and the whole game feels like a love letter to puzzle-platformers of old, especially Braid. I loved the way that the different visual motifs were used as story components (especially the pink paint), and although it was a bit confusing at times, the painting in the foyer that expands to show every subarea was a very cool way to do a world map, Also, while I'm talking about the art, the artwork is GORGEOUS. It's all hand-drawn, and there's clearly so much passion pumped into the game, from the character design to the background design, and... well, all of it! The Mechanics The mirror mechanic was very interesting, and it worked off of the game's atmosphere and story really well! I'll discuss the story a bit further down, but the tarot card cutscenes in particular made excellent use of the mirror clone, and although a lot of games have used this sort of gimmick, it's still a good gimmick, and the combination of traditional flipping puzzles and more kinetic momentum-based puzzles created a unique puzzle-solving experience that was difficult, but not too difficult. At least for the first half. Again, more on that later. The Story Like Braid, this game is superb at "show, don't tell", and the most dialogue that you get that's actually pertinent to the story is in achievement popups. The visuals are largely presented through the tarot card cutscenes, which look great, and the things that the prince does are absolutely VILE. I audibly gasped when the cutscene played with the dog in the furnace. Throughout the game, the prince is built up as an absolute monster, unworthy of love or redemption. He's a vain, womanizing, abusive demon of a man, and you hope that you never actually see him. Then, the curtain rolls back, and you get the big reveal: you were staring at him in the mirror this whole time. I was fully expecting this twist, but it still works perfectly. Everything from the alcoholism, to the paint, to the locked doors... it was all you. Everything that happened was because of you smashing the mirror and burning your mansion, and yourself, beyond recognition. It's a very tragic story, in a Greek tragedy kind of way. He was horribly vain throughout his life, and his punishment is the stripping away of the one thing that made him feel special. However, this is where the problems start. The Second Half of the Game The second half is... rough. The game opens up somewhat, and you now must collect keepsakes representing the Prince's sins. You can find these keepsakes in hidden subareas marked by fleshy red welts on the nearby walls. The visuals are grisly, and the atmosphere is extremely dark and somehow gloomier than ever. However, the puzzles in this section of the game become almost unbearably difficult. Look, I get it, it's supposed to be an "easy light world" vs "hard dark world", but the welts became much more annoying than difficult. If you touch them, you lose the ability to swap, and it recalls your mirror. Oftentimes, the only out is to drink and respawn at the entrance. It's a fine idea in practice, and I like the animation (as always with this game), but the animation is ludicrously long (roughly 20-30 seconds), and it's often the only way to reset, and every boss requires a drink whenever you "die" to them. I saw a developer response at some point that brought up how this is intentional, and that the Prince falls back on alcoholism to cope with it all. Look, I get that. But why does it have to be so TEDIOUS? Doing a 20-second drinking animation to restart a room for upwards of 45 minutes of attempts definitely helps to prove your point, but it's also really unfun for the person who's actually experiencing your story. That "45 minutes" is based on experience, by the way. Some of the dark world areas required an immense amount of precision, while others just took a ton of attempts, like the stupid maze, which was just a 20-minute long scavenger hunt with no indication of where the heirloom actually was. You just had to search from left-to-right, all the way down, in a massive 20x20 grid. Again, I get it. Games are allowed to be frustrating/tedious to prove a point. LISA: The Painful does this really well. However, LISA doesn't have its gameplay as a selling point. It's a narrative-based RPG first and foremost. This game doesn't get that liberty, as it's primarily billed as a puzzle-platformer, so I feel like the criticism is valid. The Other Twist And now we get to the part of the game that left me completely baffled. The ending. Maybe it's a matter of personal taste, but this was such a massive tone-shift, and it didn't sit well with me at all. For those of you who are curious, the heirloom hunt ends with the Prince waking up in the real world, with his hair and face still intact. He's very distressed from the horrible nightmare that he just endured, and he jumps from his bed onto a noose, comically hanging in his bedroom. He hangs there, dead. Then, the ghosts of his wives and children appear, and they start singing a weirdly comical song about how's he ugly, inside and out, while dancing around him and playing the piano. The prince joins in the song, and then it cuts to credits. It feels like a Newgrounds parody of a Disney movie, and not in a good way. It's such a strange and intense shift in tone that it genuinely made me angry. Where did all of this come from? The view outside is gorgeous as always, and the music is still good, but WHY is this here? To prove a point about his self-loathing and grief? To represent his sins coming back to haunt him? To represent his guilt for being a horrible, horrible person? All of those are pretty good guesses, I suppose, but why end in SONG? The second part of the game felt entirely disconnected from the first in terms of tone and gameplay, to the point where I wonder if the two parts were designed entirely separate from each other. The first is a very artful story about self-loathing and coming to terms with your own horrible actions. The second is a tedious slog showcasing how self-loathing can lead to suicide. The first part of the game is still amazing and holds up well, but the second half could have been DLC, or could have not been there at all, and I feel like the experience would have been just as good as it currently is. The Conclusion So, tl;dr: it was frustrating at time, and I disliked various aspects of the second half of the game, but it's still a beautifully artistic, clever, and interesting puzzle-platformer. When it was handled well, I liked the narrative, and the bosses tied it all together very well. Again, I'd probably give this a Mixed review if I could, but overall, I had a positive experience with it, so I'm fine with giving it a positive review. Excited to see what Team Ugly and the minds behind it do next!
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- At parts it's more precision platformer than puzzle platformer + Great pacing of introduction and exploration of puzzle mechanics + Really nice animation + A dark and interesting story
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One of the best games I've ever played It beat my expectations, twice! Great and emotional story, cool twists, story telling thru art, sweet little song and even (small) bossfights in a puzzle game! Simply wonderfull work Would be nice to have a dlc showing additional lore about why he was like that, no one is born evil right?
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Crazy underrated game. Artistically, it's absolutely outstanding. The graphics and animations are gorgeous, the music is beautiful and thoroughly fitting, the narrative is intriguing and moving. And many such titles that heavily rely on art go down the walking simulator route, but Ugly is a proper puzzle game, and for the most part, for the better. Even if there's only one core ability, mirroring yourself, there's a good variety of additional mechanics that make puzzles more varied and interesting. Some of the puzzles require proper timing and platforming, so the game tests not only your thinking, but also ability to execute. There are also boss fights, which, I imagine, are contentious and some would say ill-fitting, but if nothing else, I enjoyed the spectacle. However, there are things I didn't like. Many puzzles are easy to fail, forcing you to start over, which isn't immediate, although, it's not the wait, it's the annoying chromatic aberration animation that bothered me most. Getting out of the puzzle room is often its own challenge, which is not my preference, I like it more when the puzzle ends once you reach the goal. Traversing the space between rooms too requires some puzzle solving mixed with platforming, which I found irritating and time-wasting, the game could use some downtime between challenges, and if you aim to fully beat the game, several puzzles have to be redone, which is mind-boggling. Overall, puzzles remind me of The Swapper , and I prefer them in that game. Still, despite some issues, I strongly recommend Ugly , it's an exceptionally well-made and underappreciated title that is a delight to experience.
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This game has just the right level of difficulty in my opinion. The story is gripping and the gameplay is quite unique. It's one of those games where you can tell, the developers poured a lot of love and work into it. I love this game. Highly recommend!
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Last Updates| Steam data | 12 April 2025 20:10 |
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| SteamSpy data | 12 April 2025 15:19 |
| Steam price | 13 April 2025 20:30 |
| Steam reviews | 13 April 2025 09:47 |
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Developer
Team Ugly
Publisher
Graffiti Games
Release
13 Sep 2023
Platforms
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