Happy Tree Friends: Blood Money

Happy Tree Friends: Blood Money
Date	2007
Developer	Twistbox Games Ltd. & Co.KG.
Publisher	Twistbox Games Ltd. & Co.KG.
Platform	J2ME
Genre	Action

Happy Tree Friends: Blood Money was a Happy Tree Friends Java mobile game developed by Twistbox Games under license by Mobile Streams. The game is playable in either English, German, Spanish, French, or Italian. The game revolves around Lifty and Shifty making money by using blood to use for a blood bank. They do this by torturing the Friends and use their bloodshed for money. The gameplay is similar to the arcade game Breakout and has four difficulties: Easy, Medium, Hard, or Bloody.

Gameplay

The player controls Shifty and Lifty carrying a trampoline by using the '4' key or the left joystick to move them to the left or the '6' key or the right joystick to move them to the right. One of the Happy Tree Friends, Cuddles, Giggles, or Petunia (in any order), will jump on the trampoline, which launches them into the air. A set of hazards appear in mid-air to inflict damage to the Happy Tree Friend, allowing Lifty and Shifty to collect the blood dripping from the bodies as score, which is done by having the blood drops fall into the buckets on their backs. Touching hazards removes them from the playfield. Specific hazards can only disappear by hitting them from a particular direction, like the nail board that requires hitting it from above. The launched Happy Tree Friends can pick up health boxes, which periodically spawn whenever they have taken enough damage, to fix their injuries. A new set of hazards will appear if all the currently on-screen hazards are gone. If the Happy Tree Friend hits the ground, they will no longer be usable, and another one will take the turn until all three are dead, which ends the game. The mini-map on the lower-left corner of the screen can track Shifty and Lifty's and the current Happy Tree Friend's positions.

The game's four difficulties Easy, Medium, Hard, or Bloody, change up the level design layout to match the difficulty. In the Bloody difficulty, the '5' key or the fire button gains a function to catapult the Happy Tree Friend higher (required to hit hazards near the top) since they are bounced less high than in the other difficulties.

Characters

Characters

Image	Name	Description
	Shifty and Lifty	Shifty and Lifty are the main playable characters in the game.
	Friends	The Friends include Cuddles, Giggles, and Petunia. They appear in any order, and Shifty and Lifty must damage them with the hazards and collect their drops of blood in their buckets.
	Lumpy	Lumpy only appears after a Friend splatters on the ground. His only role is to clean up said Friend's remains before leaving the scene.

Hazards

This lists the hazards the player can unlock in the game. At first, the player will only start with the barbwire, the saw, the butcher's knife, the axe, scissors, the small knife, and the nail board.

A new hazard is unlocked one by one by reaching a certain score milestone in a single play session.

Image	Name	Score required	Note(s)
	Barbwire	Appears at start	-
	Saw	Appears at start	-
	Butcher's knife	Appears at start	-
	Axe	Appears at start	-
	Scissors	Appears at start	-
	Knife	Appears at start	-
	Nail board	Appears at start	Can only be hit from above. Bounces the victim slightly upwards when hit.
	Trap	100000	A trap can face either top, right, bottom, or left, which determines the direction it can be hit from.
	Chainsaw	200000	-
	Fan	300000	The victim is first held in place for less than a second before resuming his/her trajectory.
	Stove	400000	Always placed near the bottom part of the play area. Launches the victim upwards when hit.
	Paddling pool	500000	Unleashes a shark when hit. The hit only counts when the victim hits the top part of this hazard. After being hit, the victim is sent straight down.
	Box	600000	Always placed near the bottom part of the play area. Bounces the victim off when hit. The resulting explosion also shakes the screen briefly.
	Crocodile	700000	Only appears on the tree crown area. Can only be hit when its mouth is open.

Fates

Deaths

• Cuddles, Giggles, or Petunia splatters if he/she falls on the ground.

Injuries

• Cuddles, Giggles, or Petunia gradually gains injuries from taking damage from hazards, though picking up a health box will heal him/her up.

Staff

• Benjamin Helbig (game developer, game design)
• Nicole Grunwald (art)
• Bozena Zdunczyk (game design)
• Kerstin Kumbruch (project management)

Reception

Happy Tree Friends: Blood Money received mostly average reviews. Its most common issues are related to its simplistic gameplay and lack of variety.

HandyPlayer gave the game a 30% rating (94% rating from readers). While the game's graphics (5/10) and sounds (4/10) were considered the best aspects, the gameplay was considered poor (2/10). The game had criticism for being essentially a quick money-making scheme due to how simplistic the gameplay is and how lacking the variety is. In other words, Blood Money was considered as a promising concept of a game where players can butcher cutesy cartoon animals, but butchered by bland execution.

Pocket Gamer rated Blood Money a 5/10, stating that while the idea was considered attractive, there is not enough gameplay depth to make the game more than briefly entertaining.

Play 2 Go gave the game a 65% rating, stating the game as "conceptless" due to the show the game adapts on having too little substance to work as a game when compared to other adult cartoons at the time like South Park and The Simpsons. Like Pocket Gamer's review, the game also had criticism for lacking depth in gameplay.

Airgamer's review was more positive at 76% rating, calling Blood Money a fun Breakout clone. The game had some praise for its graphics and in-game unlockables, as well as satisfying sounds and controls. The graphics also got praise for managing to pull off the Happy Tree Friends show's look in smaller resolution. The review's only issues with the game were its lack of gameplay variety as the game only has one gameplay mode and the game's problems with object collisions.

Gallery

• 

  Game icon.

• 

  Logo.

Audio Samples

Song	Audio
"BloodMoneyBg"	File:BloodMoneyBg.mp3

Trivia

• The High Scores listing by default has the names Lifty on top with 200,000 points and Lumpy on the bottom with 20,000 points.
• Lumpy (spelled "LUMPY" in this case) is also the default player name when the player is about to submit their new high score.