Amygdala

[i]Amygdala - you will ♥♥♥♥ bricks.[/i] Amygdala is a shortish rougelite platformer that seems to be artistically inspired by the binding of Isaac. You guide a disembodied head around a series of randomised stages collecting gems and killing the wildlife, on the hunt for a wizard who stole your body. [h1] Good [/h1] - Actually most of the game is pretty well done - your third eye serves as a compass, a health meter and a jetpack / weapon meter [h1] Bad [/h1] - jumping doesn't "feel" good, you have this weird inertia and your character has a little trouble interacting with ladders. It's manageable but it is major razor in the fairy floss - shooting feels weak. -doesn't take long for the stages and enemies to repeat All in all I enjoyed some of this game but if it just had tighter controls and slightly redone shooting it would be so much more than it is. Pity. Maybe grab it if its super cheep and you enjoy tough platformers [h1] 2/5 [/h1]

Definitely a lot of good things to be said about Amygdala, and definitely a lot of bad. A lot. To begin, after wiping out the entire campaign in a very short amount of time, not a single achievement unlocked, which while not important, isn't cool at all. Clearly artistically inspired by Binding of Isaac, with contextual black and white doodle intro to boot, Amygdala throws you into a visually interesting platformer with a lot of surrealist monstrosities roaming the landscape and a dorky looking wizard to hunt and kill. Taking out the wizard is your main objective to regain your body, but you can take your time exploring the randomly generated levels and collecting gems to make your third eye bigger. That third eye serves as a sort of dual health meter/jetpack gauge, as it shrinks both when you take damager and when you literally ♥♥♥♥ bricks to gain some extra height. It's weirdly fun, and using your buttstuff to save yourself from falling into the abyss is definitely a good feeling. While initially disarming, the lack of a UI is a welcome change, and I appreciate the attempt, even though in some ways this game among others would've benefitted from some sort of number count or something. When you succeed you're presented with a lot of stats, and it was only after a few matches did I connect the third eye was more than just a bulletshooter. Also, for those who do take the dive into this game, where the eye is looking is where the boss is more or less located. Quite well done in both theory and execution, so serious props. Where the game faulters is sadly in the gameplay itself. Even after seeing the majority of the game and the monsters it offered, most served little other purpose than to just be bulletsponges. Platforming is wonky but functional, and I could more or less guide my disembodied grandfather head fairly well to dodge stuff and make certain jumps, but the amount of deaddropping I experienced and weird jump lag or random loss of inertia often made me have to ♥♥♥♥ bricks to save myself. I do not regret typing that. The bullets that I shoot I could never tell were getting stronger or weaker either, which wasn't the best, and most fights involve jumping and spamming the bracket buttons (of all things) to win, so prepare for a lot of repetition. Is it bad? No. It's better than the majority of games on Steam now. Amygdala is a key example as to why a maybe button is keen at the moment, because that would be my choice. This game needs a lot of work, but it's also not that bad in the first place. I can't recommend it in good faith, but I do respect what they've done here. Hopefully whatever MachineSpirit makes next will take whatever they've learned here and really apply it to whatever they do next. Worth a buy maybe if it's super on sale, but otherwise pass this one.