257 - that’s the number of deaths I incurred on my voyage to 100% completion of Renegade Kid’s latest title and follow-up to 2012’s cult classic, Mutant Mudds. If you were wondering if it was indeed a “Super Challenge”, rest assured, it is. That being said, the original Mutant Mudds wasn’t exactly the easiest of games either. Certainly not the hardest, but a great old school challenge nonetheless. Mutant Mudds Super Challenge carries on the concepts of the original but brings 40 new, masterfully crafted levels that remove nearly all margin of error that the original game afforded.

I love Mutant Mudds; I’m not going to be bashful about it. It’s one of my favorite games in a very long time and its latest Wii U incarnation further cements that. Rather than rest on their laurels, Renegade Kid has worked in 20 new levels (bringing the grand total to 80) and an optional checkpoint system to help players through the game’s tougher challenges. Combined with the already solid content, Mutant Mudds Deluxe is not only the definitive version of the game, but an absolute steal at its asking price.

It’s rare that I can use the word “charming” to describe a game, and rarer still when I play a game that puts a steady smile on my face. Somehow in the chase for realistic polygon models, normal mapping, and Euphoria physics engines we lost a little bit of that magic that got us into gaming in the first place. That’s where Mutant Mudds comes into the picture—a game that may play on my nostalgia for the 8- and 16-bit days of gaming, but does so with skill and style.

By any chance, were you wondering what your Uncle Matt was thinking? Of course you weren’t, but here they are anyway.

Renegade Kid, the developer behind Mutant Mudds, has teased their new game, Bomb Monkey. Jools Watsham, co-founder of the studio, released the following tweet yesterday.

Faux retro games are all the rage these days. Capturing the look, sounds, and feeling of the gaming days of yore has proved to be a successful formula for most of the companies that have tried it. Renegade Kid has given the subgenre a shot with their latest title, Mutant Mudds, to great success. Instead of modeling itself after the most popular NES games, it creates its own identity that merges ideas from all past generations and systems – even the Virtual Boy. This mash up of ideas comes together in a spectacular way, making it one of the best titles available today on the 3DS.

While not many have had the opportunity to play the Virtual Boy, Renegade Kid’s latest work is oddly reminiscent of Nintendo’s misfit system. Back when the Virtual Boy launched, it touted its special 3D capabilities; these boiled down to little more than multiple viewing planes, which gave the illusion of 3D. The most memorable games used these multiple planes to create deeper platforming experiences. Taking a cue from these experiences, Mutant Mudds allows players to jump between the current plane, background, and foreground.

Nintendo didn’t have the most even release schedule in 2011.  A year that could be characterized as lacking in terms of software releases was capped off by a small barrage of marquee releases in the form of Super Mario 3D Land, Mario Kart 7 and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.