Sunblaze
I picked up this game 3 days after its release and oh boy am I satisfied with my purchase!
Sunblaze is a brain-twisting precision platformer with hundreds of challenging, handcrafted levels to keep you dying for hours and hours. Also the first platformer game that I have ever played and I am more than happy that I started with this one. As of now I have over 6200+ deaths.
! The game offers at first sight to play the game normal following a character named Josie as she has to complete different challenges in a simulation created by her father, at some point she gets stuck in this simulation and finds a unicorn who becomes your friend, later on betraying you and you have an epic boss fight with it’s actual form, which reminded me of the final boss from DOOM 2016.
– Real player with 68.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best 2D Platformer Story Rich Games.
Target Audience: Speedrunners, through wanting difficult precision platforming gameplay
Summary:
Sunblaze is one of those games that will hit well with a certain audience: those who love difficult platforming, and in particular, the rush of making through levels quickly with simple yet refined controls. It’s a game that wears the influence of games like Celeste and others on its sleeve with its specific movement, and in that area it does well. Granted, it’s a game that is difficult with precision jumps and needing to master several finite moves in a row, but the consistency of the controls helps the game immensely. Good level variety helps in all the different types of difficulty that the game tests you on. Add in some good visual indicators and you’ve got something that will keep your attention over 4-5 hours to beat the main set of levels.
– Real player with 17.1 hrs in game
Almost There: The Platformer
“Corri tra le lame evitando i missili autoguidati. Abbassati sotto i laser mentre il pavimento si sbriciola sotto i tuoi piedi. Quasi arrivati è stato ideato appositamente per i fan più accaniti dei giochi a piattaforme, sei stato avvertito.”
This localization is literally awesome - they Google-translated letter-by-letter the game title, without even adding quotation marks. So, “Almost there” turned into “Quasi arrivati” - which is awesome. By the way, it’s plural too. It would be like translating “Final Fantasy” into “Fantasie finali”. Take on me, Italian-speakers!
– Real player with 139.5 hrs in game
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ALMOST THERE: THE PLATFORMER - 3/10
Quick Review: A not very challenging, unbelievably basic, ugly, barebones platforming experience. While the level design isn’t all that bad the game just simply doesn’t have anything unique or interesting enough to warrant playing.
Maybe you have gotten this in the humble bundle like I did, or maybe you love platformers and saw this in your recommendations on Steam. I’m going to try and make this review a bit shorter than my others because there is not much to this game.
– Real player with 5.7 hrs in game
Soul Climb
i 100% recommend this game to people. its cheap but it takes a while to complete and is pretty good. i would say its a bit hollow but the lore potential is high. I wont spoil the game but if they updated it and made some changes (maby some more lore) it will feel way better to play. But its a good short experience that leaves you questioning what is going on at the end. GO FIND OUT THE END YOURSELF BTW :EDIT 1: i found out there is a secret achievement probably for beating the game without assist and probably has lore reveals. I also wish the game was more popular
– Real player with 1.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best 2D Platformer Difficult Games.
I really loved this game.
It’s not easy in the slightest and you’ll die countless times, but as you progress up the game, it feels really rewarding to die, die, die and then managing to go to the next map.
– Real player with 0.5 hrs in game
Don’t Die! Douche!
This game is fun. It is relaxing but at the same time fills you with RAGE! You simply don’t know what’s going to kill you or when it’s going to kill you.It will make you sweat, you’ll laugh, you may even rage quit. I have live streamed this game on Twitch and I was giggling like a schoolgirl and I’d not even had a beer. Get some mates round, have a few beers and challenge one another to not die. Have fun!
– Real player with 2.8 hrs in game
Well, I played this game as a friend made it, and I thought I’d show my support. I’m very glad I did, but partly wishing I hadn’t. The main reason is because it’s so infuriating. It is a great game though, and I’m determined to complete it. Get it. Have fun, and try not to launch anything.
– Real player with 2.4 hrs in game
Flatland: Prologue
Very cool and a great addition to Flatland series! It brings up new interesting mechanics that refreshes entire previous experience. Beautiful graphics and nice soudtracks! The game difficulty is well balanced and very challenging sometimes. Recommended!
– Real player with 7.6 hrs in game
So much fun! You can beat it in under 30 minutes, but speedrunning it and figuring out what paths to take, where dashing would be useful even in the early levels, and just getting a full run without dying takes a lot longer.
– Real player with 5.7 hrs in game
FLATLAND Vol.1
This game is a pretty fun, fast-paced platformer! Not too difficult, though there were a handful of levels that kicked my butt for a teeny bit. The music is pretty banging! Got 100% achievements in just under 7 hours in one sitting. The extra game modes you unlock, “Faster Than Light” (race against the clock) and “Not Him Again” (Boss Chase), were pretty fun and challenging additions to the game! I didn’t really care much for the “Square Fights Back” (arena) mode but others may enjoy it!
I can’t believe I missed that first C-C-C-C-Cube though! I went through each level like 3 or 4 times before I found it. _ And there’s literally NO Achievements Guides anywhere on the Internet nor Steam. But I did find 48/50 of them on the first play-through so they were pretty easy to find! :)
– Real player with 7.6 hrs in game
Flatland is an incredibly well-designed platformer that focuses on player skill and reflexes.
The retrowave aesthetic is vivid, simple and engrossing. I love the use of simple geometric shapes and how they all somehow have a unique character and personality. The bonus levels look particularly stunning when you find them!
The music is also sublime with a handful of catchy electronic/synthwave tracks that are both distinct and match the mood of the game perfectly.
The gameplay is super fast with level design that goads the player into finding creative solutions. It has a free-form platforming design that lets you wall-jump indefinitely, dash
– Real player with 5.8 hrs in game
Lords of Strife
I had a lot of fun with the game… for both the challenge and the atmosphere. Loved the music! Very challenging, especially for casual players such as myself. I noted that this may be a con for the game, due to certain parts being very challenging.
The look and feel of the game is fantastic! Major points for the controller compatibility and game sound volume control, which more than a few Indie games have been lacking.
I did a live review of the game, and presented my thoughts and reactions in real time (up through the first boss):
– Real player with 39.1 hrs in game
Lords of Strife is a game about pain, which isn’t evident by the colorful backgrounds and soundtrack reminiscent of classic video games, but the mood is right there in the title. The gameplay is difficult and innovative in that to move forward you will have to suffer. The platforming and puzzles will take several attempts to achieve mastery, but you will also have to adjust to enemies and how they change the levels. Several are impossible without effectively utilizing the enemies, and creatures like the frogs, owls, and coyotes provide more utility than obstacle. Your greatest weapon is determination, and the only other contender is a pitchfork. The dialogue is humorously grim. Death is frequent but, at least in the earlier stages, not a large setback, and advancing to the next screen preserves your progress. Ride those scarecrows.
– Real player with 17.8 hrs in game
Philophobia: The Fear of Love
I’ve been following this game for quite a while now, from Tims original reddit post and man this game has grown quite significantly if that original GIF is anything to go by. I’ve also helped beta test the steam edition of this game and have poured well over 40+ hours into the various different versions of this game, from its itch.io release to the Kartridge port and now it’s current steam debut!
– Real player with 11.0 hrs in game
I can’t give it a blanket recommendation, but having beaten it I enjoyed it well enough. If this one shook out as Positive/Mostly Positive I’d call that a fair assessment but come prepared for tight jumps and minimal hand holding.
The title alternates between a puzzle platformer and a speedrunner. I’m not going to profess that it’s the lovechild of Super Meat Boy and Celeste or anything like that but I think it’s got some interesting ideas. Smoothing out difficulty curve a bit could go a long way (I died 260 times on one level and less than 10 on the next. This is an extreme example but you get the idea). I expect that level to be an exit point for a lot of people.
– Real player with 6.9 hrs in game
Typomancer in the Feather’s Way
A very different proposal with a very frantic gameplay this is Typomancer. At first I thought that having to type in the middle of a game would make for a strange experience, but I was totally wrong. The fact of typing brought something quite innovative, where we can have frantic moments when it is necessary to type very fast or even moments when we can prepare for the worst by anticipating typing. I really liked the game’s proposal in combination with the effects. 10/10.
– Real player with 1.4 hrs in game
The game has a very nice experience, with a very well polishing done and with a very interesting cost-benefit.
– Real player with 0.9 hrs in game
AFTERGRINDER
AFTERGRINDER is an intense speedrunning platformer in which you need to avoid obstacles, collect stars and race to finish to beat a level.
Pros:
-Immensly fun, the speed of the game and the obstacles placed your way gradually increase as you progress, leaving you with an ever increasing challenge
-The colour scheme and music suit the game and flow of the game perfectly, adding great immersion to your experience
-Controls are easy to grasp, and responsive
-It has trading cards and Steam Achievements
– Real player with 8.9 hrs in game
First impression: wow I dig the artstyle and music.
Then comes the “story” text that makes up a story about why the protagonist has to go to the end of the stages, the moment after it tells you that it says “what are you waiting for, no seriously there is no story the whole point of this game is to make you rage”… Sigh. Those are contradicting sentences and it’s not generally a good idea to tell your consumers that the point of your game is to make them rage when you pay for a video game.
So I go about the first 5 level and think alright this game has a few things that could be improved upon but so far it’s good enough for what I paid (got it in a bundle) then comes level 6 of world 1 and they introduce a pink line. The goal of the game is to gravity shift through obstacles and this pink line acts as a floor or ceilling depending on where you shift from. The thing is that you have to press up or down again on the line and it would have made sense to just pass through once you input that command but instead, you just flip on it and have to press it again to pass through. That is a design flaw in my oppinion because after like 5 minute of gameplay you changed the rules where I had to input 1 command to dodge and incomming obstacle (well from 0 to 1) and made it that it became 0-3 commands per obstacle. In a runner, this is too much information that has to be made every 2 seconds and makes the game unplayable, I would have to do the whole stage per section while dying endlessly to learn the layout of the stage and execute the commands accordingly. And that is within 5 minute of gameplay, if it would be the last mechanic to learn it would have been fair but the second mechanic? Nah. There is plenty of better game in the genre, that doesn’t use unfair or poorly designed mechanics to “make you rage”. Save your money.
– Real player with 4.2 hrs in game