What is the most common activity that video games have you doing? Is it saving the princess? Or is it mowing down Nazis? In truth it is neither. The one thing that the majority of video games want you to do is simply stay alive. That’s the underlying premise to almost all games (except sports games of course). So what do you get when a game not only recognises that you die, but encourages it? Well you may just get Swarm.

Swarm is a platform game at heart, where the simple goal is to get from one end of the level to the other. You start each level with 50 swarmites, a fancy name for little blue blobs, and you control them all at once. During the level you will lose swarmites. This is not an option. Losing swarmites is something that you will just have to reconcile with. The little blue blobs will be squished, fried, zapped, choked and even cut in half, but as long as you have one swarmite alive you can continue. As you play on you will come across swarmite nests which will replenish your supply of the little blue beasties, enabling the massacre to continue.

The trick of Swarm though is to not only make it to the end of the level, but to score the most points possible. If you do not reach a certain amount of points for each level, you will be unable to progress to the next. To score points, you need to collect glowing items (really there is no better way to describe them). As you collect these, your points go up and so does your score multiplier. If your multiplier looks like it is going to run out, you can sacrifice a swarmite to reset the timer. Your points are banked at each checkpoint, so if you die you won’t lose everything, but if you want to challenge the leaderboards then dying really isn’t an option.

There is not much in the way of a tutorial for those new to the game but it’s easy to pick up. There is a short slide show which demonstrates the basic ways to control the swarmites but I would imagine most players would skip this. The controls are simple to grasp and offer all the complexity you require to guide your swarmites through the increasingly difficult levels. The triggers spread and bunch your group of swarmites, allowing you to avoid damage depending on the situation. There is a dash button which is used to break blocks and a button each for ‘Jump’ and ‘Use’ (fairly self-explanatory). Holding your grouping button and pressing jump will stack your swarmites on top of each other, allowing you to reach higher levels and items. These are simple controls that facilitate a smooth and painless experience.

The graphics suit the unique gameplay style. The levels have a post apocalyptic feel to them and all look detailed and attractive. The swarmites are all presented nicely but the real star of the animations here are the death scenes. The different ways that your little critters die are all lovingly animated. This is where the humour of the game squarely lies and the first time you see one of your swarmites get impaled as it falls of a cliff, I challenge you not to laugh. This leads to one of the game’s greatest flaws. Due to the zoomed out view, it is quite often difficult to see the traps, lava, gas and bombs that you need to guide your team through. This distant perspective is fine to play the game with but it does mean you miss things. Before long you will desperately start looking for a zoom function in the options menu, but alas there is none to be found.

Another disappointment with the game is its length. If you are not the type of gamer that likes to chase high scores, you’ll probably breeze through this in about 3-4 hours. Being on the expensive end of downloadable games (about AU $20), this is a little bit of a letdown. In all there are only 12 levels and two bosses to fight. There is no online multiplayer but if you are a high score chaser there are online leaderboards to challenge yourself with. There is also a friends filter so you can see how your mates are doing at the game.

The leaderboards seemed to present their own problems though. Sometimes when I refreshed the leaderboard, the game would simply lock up, with the only solution a hard reset of the console. Now this may be just an Xbox Live issue but it happened to me on three different occasions. In the end, I had to disconnect my Xbox from Live to ensure I wouldn’t have to reset the game every time I checked my score.

Swarm offers rewards for each level in the form of ‘Death Medals’, which are awarded to you for killing your swarmites in the many different ways available. These medals level up as your slaughter goes on and if you manage to collect all of them you are rewarded with an achievement and a little swarmite of your own for your XBLA avatar to play with. There are 11 other achievements and one play-through should be enough to get the majority of them.

If you liked the concept of Super Meat Boy but found it too punishing, or if you are intrigued by the idea of a platforming Lemmings game, then Swarm may be the game for you. The only problem is it doesn’t excel as those games both did. Swarm is addictive and fun while it lasts but its length may put you off, especially at the current price. With a few bugs thrown into the mix, I suggest that unless you are a real indie nut, you may wish to wait for a sale to buy it.