Tasty Planet Forever

In the realm of casual gaming, few concepts are as primally satisfying as the “eat everything” mechanic. It taps into a simple, chaotic joy: starting small, vulnerable, and insignificant, and growing into an unstoppable force of nature that consumes entire galaxies. Dingo Games, a Vancouver-based indie studio, has mastered this art form with their Tasty Planet series. While the earlier titles—Tasty Planet, Tasty Planet: Back for Seconds, and Tasty Blue—established the formula, Tasty Planet Forever arrives as the magnum opus of the franchise.

Released in late 2018, Tasty Planet Forever is the fourth major installment in the series and arguably the most ambitious. Unlike its predecessors, which typically followed a single protagonist (usually the infamous Grey Goo) through a linear timeline or narrative, Tasty Planet Forever breaks the mold by offering a diverse anthology of carnivorous adventures. From the romantic streets of Paris to the frozen wastelands of Antarctica, and even the dusty red plains of Mars, the game offers a smorgasbord of destruction that feels both familiar and refreshingly new.

This article serves as a comprehensive guide, review, and analysis of Tasty Planet Forever. We will dissect its gameplay mechanics, explore every unique campaign, analyze its visual evolution, and provide a strategic roadmap for conquering its 150+ levels. Whether you are a longtime fan of the Grey Goo or a newcomer looking for a game where you can eat the Eiffel Tower, this deep dive will cover every crumb.

The Core Gameplay Mechanics: Eat, Grow, Conquer

At its heart, Tasty Planet Forever is an action-adventure game with a simple premise: you eat things smaller than you to get bigger, allowing you to eat larger things. This “katamari-style” growth loop is addictive because it provides immediate and constant feedback. You see your character physically expand, the camera pulls back, and obstacles that were once deadly predators suddenly become prey.

The Rules of Consumption

The rules are rigid yet rewarding. Every object in the game world has a specific size value. If you are smaller than an object, you cannot eat it. If you touch something significantly larger—especially if it is an aggressive entity like a guard dog, a shark, or a police car—you will take damage and lose some of your mass. If you lose too much mass, you die and must restart the level.

However, once you cross the size threshold, the dynamic shifts instantly. A red aura often indicates dangerous enemies, which turns green or disappears once they are edible. This visual shorthand allows players to make split-second decisions in chaotic environments. The game constantly teases you with objects just slightly out of your reach, motivating you to scour the level for smaller crumbs to bridge the gap.

Perspective Shift: Top-Down vs. Side-Scrolling

One of the defining features of Tasty Planet Forever is the seamless integration of two distinct perspectives, adding variety to the pacing.

1. Top-Down Views: These levels play like classic Tasty Planet. You have 360-degree freedom of movement. These levels are often exploration-heavy, requiring you to navigate mazes, gardens, or city blocks to find pockets of food. The strategy here is often about cornering—finding a dense pocket of small items in the corner of a room to bulk up quickly.
2. Side-Scrolling Levels: A significant portion of the game (especially in the Cat and Penguin campaigns) utilizes a 2D side-scrolling perspective. These levels feel more like platformers. You have to jump over gaps, dodge falling debris, and navigate verticality. The physics in these levels add a new layer of challenge; you aren’t just steering a blob, you are managing momentum and gravity.

The Cast of Characters: A Global Buffet

Previous games in the series focused largely on the Grey Goo. Tasty Planet Forever shakes things up by introducing a roster of eight distinct main characters, each with their own “world” or campaign. This anthology approach keeps the gameplay fresh, as each character inhabits a completely different biome with unique assets and prey.

1. The Parisian Cat

The game opens in Paris, France. You play as a stray cat with a robotic stomach (implied by the backstory of eating “nanomachines”).

• The Experience: You start by eating mice and cockroaches in a restaurant kitchen. As you grow, you move to baguettes, wine bottles, and bewildered waiters. The escalation is rapid. Soon, you are prowling the streets, consuming cars, trees, and eventually historic landmarks.
• The Highlight: The final levels of this campaign are a tour de force of destruction, where you consume the Notre Dame cathedral and the Eiffel Tower. The contrast between the cute, meowing protagonist and the absolute devastation of Paris is the game’s signature humor in a nutshell.

2. The Caribbean Octopus

This campaign shifts the action underwater. The Octopus controls are fluid, simulating the weightlessness of the ocean.

• The Experience: You begin in a tropical paradise, eating small fish and crabs. The environment is vibrant, filled with coral reefs and sunken treasures. As you grow, you start attacking scuba divers, boats, and eventually cruise ships.
• Unique Mechanics: The underwater levels introduce 3D movement on a 2D plane (in top-down view) where depth doesn’t matter, but in side-scrolling sections, swimming mechanics take over. You can dash through the water, making it one of the faster-paced campaigns.

3. The African Rat

Set in the savannas of Africa, this campaign features a rat that accidentally ingests the experimental goo.

• The Experience: It starts gritty—eating refuse and bugs. But the African setting quickly introduces dangerous wildlife. You have to dodge the feet of elephants and the jaws of lions until you are big enough to turn the tables.
• The Twist: This campaign often feels like a revenge story. You spend the early levels being terrorized by everything, making it incredibly satisfying when you eventually grow large enough to swallow a jeep or a safari lodge whole.

4. The Big City Bee

This is perhaps one of the most unique campaigns due to the scale. As a bee, you start incredibly small.

• The Experience: You begin by eating pollen and other insects. The sense of scale is warped here; a single flower is a massive level. The progression moves from nature to the human world, where you eventually consume a bustling metropolis.
• Flight Mechanics: The bee has free flight in side-scrolling levels, which differentiates it from the gravity-bound cat or rat. This allows for vertical exploration and aerial combat against birds and drones.

5. The Pacific Basking Shark

A spiritual successor to Tasty Blue, this campaign focuses on pure aquatic gluttony.

• The Experience: The Basking Shark is an eating machine. You swim through the Pacific Ocean, consuming schools of fish, plastic waste, and unsuspecting swimmers. The levels scale up to include submarines, naval fleets, and eventually, the mythical Kaiju.
• Atmosphere: There is a slight eco-conscious undertone here (eating plastic and cleaning the ocean), though it is quickly subsumed by the absurdity of eating an aircraft carrier.

6. The Australian Dingo

Fitting for the developer (Dingo Games), this campaign is set in the Australian Outback.

• The Experience: You play as a Dingo encountering the local wildlife. Snakes, spiders, and kangaroos are all on the menu. The color palette shifts to dusty reds and oranges.
• Challenge: The enemies in the Dingo campaign tend to be more aggressive. Emus and kangaroos will actively attack you, requiring more hit-and-run tactics than the relatively passive entities in the Paris levels.

7. The Cyberpunk Penguin

This campaign takes a sci-fi turn. Set in a futuristic version of Antarctica (or perhaps a moon base), the Penguin campaign features high-tech enemies.

• The Experience: You eat snow, ice, and fish, but quickly graduate to consuming futuristic robots, lasers, and flying cars.
• Visuals: The aesthetic shifts to neon lights and metallic surfaces, offering a stark contrast to the naturalistic environments of the previous campaigns.

8. The Martian Grey Goo

The final main campaign returns to the series’ roots. You play as the classic Grey Goo, but on Mars.

• The Experience: This is the ultimate escalation. You start by eating Martian rocks and rovers, but the growth potential is uncapped. You eventually eat the planet Mars, then the solar system, nearby stars, galaxies, and finally, the fabric of the universe itself.
• The Ending: This campaign serves as the narrative conclusion, taking the concept of “eating everything” to its logical, cosmic extreme.

Bonus Characters: The Fun Never Ends

One of the reasons Tasty Planet Forever boasts such high replayability is the inclusion of eight bonus characters. These aren’t just skins; they often come with their own unique levels or remixed versions of existing stages.

• Metal Cat: A robotic variation of the main character, often stronger or faster.
• Moray Eel: A longer, more serpentine aquatic predator.
• Elephant: Playing as an elephant that starts small and grows to titanic proportions is a delightfully ironic twist.
• Ladybug: Similar to the bee but grounded, offering a different perspective on the “micro” levels.
• Killer Whale: An apex predator for the ocean levels, allowing you to dominate early game threats with ease.
• Baby: A humorous addition where a crawling baby consumes the house and eventually the neighborhood.
• Chicken: A farm-based challenge.
• Black Hole: The ultimate consumer. This character essentially functions as a “God Mode” entity in specific levels, sucking in everything with a gravitational pull rather than a bite animation.

Detailed Level Design and Environment

The level design in Tasty Planet Forever deserves special mention because of its “Russian Nesting Doll” structure.

The Sense of Scale

The developers have done an excellent job of seamlessly transitioning between scales. In a single level, you might start inside a picnic basket eating crumbs. By the mid-point, you are eating the picnic attendees. By the end, you are eating the park trees and the surrounding city block. This transition is handled by “zooming out.” The camera pulls back dynamically as you grow. The assets you once saw as high-definition obstacles (like a shoe) become tiny, low-poly dots as you surpass them in size. This technical trick maintains the sense of progression without requiring loading screens between size tiers.

Environmental Hazards

It’s not just about eating. The levels are filled with hazards that require platforming skills.

• Moving Obstacles: Cars on a highway, crushing machinery in a factory, or falling rocks in a cave.
• Aggressive Enemies: Police with guns, tanks, fighter jets, and other predators will whittle down your health.
• Time Limits: To achieve a “Gold” or “Platinum” medal, you must complete the level within a specific time frame. This forces players to optimize their pathing, rather than just aimlessly wandering.

Visuals and Audio: A Cartoon Symphony

Art Style

The art style of Tasty Planet Forever is distinctively 2D and vector-based. It lacks the gritty realism of modern AAA titles, opting instead for a clean, colorful, and “flash game” aesthetic. This is a strength, not a weakness. The crisp lines ensure that even when the screen is chaotic, the player can distinguish between edible items and dangerous threats. The character designs are expressive. The cat’s wide eyes, the shark’s toothy grin, and the dingo’s playful trot add personality to what are essentially eating machines. The violence is cartoonish—there is no blood, only a “pop” sound as entities vanish into your stomach, making it suitable for children and adults alike.

Sound Design

The sound effects are punchy and satisfying. The “chomp” sound effect is the heartbeat of the game. It is rapid-fire and rhythmic, creating a satisfying ASMR-like feedback loop. The music, however, has received mixed reception compared to the jazz-fusion quirkiness of the original Tasty Planet. Tasty Planet Forever opts for more thematic tracks—accordion music for Paris, steel drums for the Caribbean, tribal beats for Africa. While these fit the setting, some veteran fans miss the catchy, cohesive theme of the earlier games. Nevertheless, the soundtrack is upbeat and keeps the energy high.

Strategy Guide: How to Eat the Universe

For players looking to not just beat the levels but dominate them (getting all Platinum medals), here is a strategic breakdown.

1. The “Smallest First” Rule

When you enter a new area, do not waste time chasing items that are borderline edible. Focus on the smallest, most abundant items first. Eating 50 tiny ants in 5 seconds is faster growth than chasing one elusive beetle for 10 seconds. Rapid consumption of mass quantities is the key to early growth.

2. Corner Sweeping

In top-down levels, items often congregate in corners or along the walls. “Sweeping” the perimeter of a room or enclosure is often the most efficient way to clear a level. This also protects your flank, ensuring aggressive enemies can’t sneak up behind you.

3. The Boost Mechanic

Use your boost (Spacebar or tap/hold) wisely. It depletes a stamina bar, but it is essential for:

• Closing the gap on fleeing prey.
• Escaping a predator that is about to bite you.
• Ramming: In some instances, boosting into an object helps you snag it before it moves out of range.

4. Know Your Predator

Identify the “Gatekeepers” of the level. These are the specific enemies that are currently blocking your access to a new area or size tier. For example, in the Ocean level, the Barracudas might be the terror of the reef. Your goal should be to eat just enough fish to become larger than a Barracuda. Once you eat the Gatekeeper, the rest of the level usually opens up.

5. Side-Scrolling Physics

In side-scrolling levels, remember that gravity is your friend. Falling on top of an enemy is often safer than approaching it from the side. Also, look for hidden areas. The ceiling or high ledges often hide caches of high-value food (like diamonds or coins) that can give you a massive size boost early on.

Comparison to Prequels: Is Bigger Better?

How does Forever stack up against Tasty Planet: Back for Seconds or Tasty Blue?

Pros:

• Variety: The biggest improvement. The previous games could feel monotonous because you were always the same blob in similar environments. The shift between Cat, Octopus, Bee, etc., keeps the physics and visual interest dynamic.
• Length: It is significantly longer. With over 150 levels, it offers far more content than the 40-50 levels of previous entries.
• Modern Polish: The interface, resolution support, and control responsiveness are superior.

Cons:

• Story Cohesion: Back for Seconds had a fun time-travel narrative that tied everything together. Forever feels more disjointed, like a collection of mini-games rather than a single epic journey.
• Complexity: Some players feel the simple purity of the Grey Goo is lost with the introduction of complex character models like the Dingo or Penguin.

Despite these minor gripes, Tasty Planet Forever is objectively the most feature-rich and robust entry in the series.

The Psychology of the “Eat-‘Em-Up”

Why is this game so fun? The appeal lies in the psychological concept of Competence and Autonomy.

• Competence: The game makes you feel powerful. You solve the problem of “being small” by actively conquering the environment. The progression is visible and undeniable.
• Catharsis: There is a destructive joy in eating a car that ran you over five minutes ago. It turns frustration into fuel.
• Simplicity: In an era of complex RPGs with 100-hour storylines, Tasty Planet Forever offers a “pickup and play” experience. It is pure dopamine without the baggage of complex inventory management or skill trees.

Technical Aspects: Platforms and Performance

Tasty Planet Forever is available on PC (Steam), iOS, and Android.

• Mobile Experience: The game plays wonderfully on touchscreens. The “virtual joystick” or “tap to move” controls are intuitive. The short level duration (2-5 minutes) makes it a perfect mobile game for commuting.
• PC Experience: On PC, the game supports local co-op. Two players can play on the same screen, which doubles the chaos. Playing with a controller is highly recommended for the side-scrolling sections, offering tighter precision than a keyboard.
• Performance: Being a 2D game, it is incredibly lightweight. It runs smoothly on older phones and non-gaming laptops, making it accessible to a massive audience.

Conclusion: A Banquet Worth Attending

Tasty Planet Forever lives up to its name by providing a seemingly endless loop of consumption and growth. It takes the simple premise of its predecessors and expands it in every direction—more characters, more worlds, more levels, and more ridiculous things to eat.

While it may lack the singular narrative focus of the earlier titles, it makes up for it with sheer variety and charm. Whether you are a casual gamer looking to kill a few minutes or a completionist aiming for every Platinum medal, the game offers a satisfyingly crunchy experience.

The journey from a small cat eating a cockroach to a galactic entity swallowing nebulas is a power fantasy that never gets old. Dingo Games has proven that sometimes, the simple act of eating is all you need to have a good time. If you have an appetite for destruction, Tasty Planet Forever is a meal you shouldn’t skip.