[10] The HoodWinks to fight include a Frankenstein's monster, witch, zombies, boxer ape, bats, sharks, mice, robots, eating plants, puffer fish, tarantulas, parrots, pirates, and small dinosaurs.

[6][10] 40 Winks was the first original video game of developer Eurocom Entertainment Software, as their previous works included licensed products and ports of arcade titles.

[13] Programmers consisted of Ian Denny, Ashley Finney, Andrew Hutchings, Dave Arnold, Stefan Walker, Kev Grantham, and Kris Hadock.

[13] The in-game animators were Richard Brookes, Michael Biggs, Adam King, Mark Povey, Bryan Rogers, and Brian Malone-West, while the full motion video cutscenes were by Victor Garrido, Abraham Oset, Ana Amat, Joaquin Catala, Jose Garcia, and Julian Romero.

[12] The Jack-in-the-Box was added to incorporate diverse gameplay styles, and the use of areas only accessible to Ruff and Tumble were meant to add replay value to the game.

[22] AllGame writer Glenn Wigmore compared 40 Winks to Banjo-Kazooie for its platform genre, "moody soundtrack", and visual style, specifically its "shadowed color palette" and macabre level settings.

"[16] He praised the levels as "varied and will have you busy while you're in them", finding their visuals and lighting of the stages to be better than Banjo-Kazooie; he notes, however, that the space to explore was lesser, as a lot of areas include small rooms and caves.

[10] He went after the protagonist characters, calling them just as lovable as "other dull platform heroes who have tried and failed to impose their anodyne personalities on the world's younger gamers", such as Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon, Tonic, and Rayman.

[10] Erik, the PC Gamer of Game Informer was critical of the camera, complaining that it can "whip around" the player character in the middle of a simple jump.

[17] Mike Wilcox wrote that its "huge levels and "practice makes perfect" gameplay would appeal to adults, and while the game genre is not unique, it has "plenty of twist and puzzles".

[9] He wrote it was another 3D platformer with a cute aesthetic, fitting in alongside Croc: Legend of the Gobbos (1997), Ape Escape (1999), and titles in the Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon series.

[9] Ian Johnston of GameSpot, although stating 40 Winks was "sound in many respects", was ultimately a poor platformer due to its "utter lack of challenge, its ultracute tone (which severely limits its appeal), and its oversimplified gameplay.

"[20] Official Nintendo Magazine brought up the easy difficulty, which meant older gamers could finish it quicker than young players.

[8] Marc Nix of IGN noted its demographic towards young children; it is similar to games in the Super Mario, Crash Bandicoot and Sonic the Hedgehog franchises, in that it uses cute characters and comical settings to appeal to all ages.

[7] He opined it contained "some well-done fantasy elements", with "all the imagination in the graphics, story, setting, and overall artistry", and "could have been a thrilling and mesmerizing voyage into the land of make-believe".

[7] The primary problem, according to him, was the off-balance difficulty, where pre-teen players could finish it within a day, but adolescent players would have too much trouble due to a lacking of a learning curve for them: "Bottomless pits, acid and lava lakes, and rampaging monsters face you at every turn, and children will likely run through all of their extra lives quickly, even on the easiest setting.

"[7] He also reported the visuals occasionally making it hard to move around the level, such as dark caves and the lack of differentiation between aspects in the underwater segments.