Peanut Butter and Jelly Game Review

PB&J Game Background

PB&J is a collaborative cooperative platformer video game. Players move the peanut butter jar and jelly blob around the screen with the goal of completing a sandwich.

Each character has their own strengths and weaknesses, and the characters also play off each other.

In this game you do not defeat any enemies, but must simply avoid the ants, bees, forks, spoons, firesticks, bullets, and the rock that chases you.

How to Play Peanut Butter and Jelly

Peanut Butter

Only peanut butter can collect the peanut butter cap collectible on each stage.

Move peanut butter around using the arrow keys. If you hold the down arrow key in that creates a protective bubble around the peanut butter jar, which can block incoming cannon fire, though does not allow you to walk on forks. Jelly can also bounce off peanut butter's protective bubble to jump higher.

Peanut butter is strong, so he can push boxes and crates. It is the only character heavy enough to activate yellow buttons.

Crates are vital to aligning a safe path through the stage, with some stages requiring crates stacked atop each other & used like stairs.

Peanut butter must keep standing on a yellow button to keep it activated, with deactivation happening the moment it is stepped off of. Yellow buttons open blocked off paths by opening the doors consisting of a stack of crates.

Jelly

Only jelly can collect the floating grapes on each stage.

Move jelly around using the WASD keys. When jelly moves it hops, so you can jump a bit higher with jelly than peanut butter can jump, because you can combine the horizontal hop with a vertical jump. Jelly can fit through narrow gaps and is the only character which can activate the switches that move platforms up and down.

Together

This game can be played with a single player controlling each character, or friends can share the keyboard and play the game together. Anytime a character dies they return back to the starting point of that level. In some cases that is not a problem, whereas in other cases with tandem jumps or disappearing temporary platforms death can end up requiring a level restart.

Either character can grab the stamp looking postcard collectible on each stage.

Some stages have fans which blow you up toward a higher platform. Fans can be turned on by pressing down on the item which looks like an old fashioned weight scale, turning the lower indicator light red for off and green for on. Either character can activate the fans. In some cases you will then also need to deactivate the fan to allow peanut butter to get back down and around.

Some stages have locked gates right before the exit bread. These gates get opened by having peanut butter and jelly each stand at a different input terminal at the same time. The input terminals show a red light near the top and turn green when they are active.

Some platforms are temporary and fall away. Plan your route in advance so that you do not accidentally destroy a needed platform, or else you will get stuck and be forced to restart the level again. Similarly, make sure you do not leave jelly inside an area that will be gated off after peanut butter leaves a button, unless peanut butter will then activate another yellow button.

On ice levels you slide, so be careful when moving near the edges of platforms so you don't fall off.

Advanced Playing Tips & Strategy

If you are beating each stage for speed you can play once through when you collect all of the items, then play again for a speed run without needing to collect everything. The level select screen shows which collectibles you have gathered on each stage, and what your best time is on each stage.

This game involves a lot of back and forth movement. In some cases intentionally having a character die so they restart at the original starting point can save time.

Educational Aspects

This game helps children develop teamwork and collaborative problem solving skills.

Player Age Recommendations

Some stages of the game are quite challenging, so the game is probably a good fit for middle school and up. Grade school children who are great at platformer games will also likely enjoy the game, though younger players inexperienced in gaming might be frusted by some of the stages where it is easy to get stuck by destroying a tempory platform or getting locked behind a gate.