Burnstar

I normally don't like puzzle games, but I sat down with Burnstar and really got into it. It does have a slight Bomber man thing going, but aside from placing bombs and being more or less gridlike it's very different than the classic game. Your goal is to spread fire throughout a level as thoroughly as possible while using the least amount of the explosives that each level gives for your disposal. But fire spreads in a very distinct way. Big objects spread fire further and light smaller objects on fire. Smaller boxes have a harder time lighting bigger boxes but there are exceptions that you have to learn and be aware of. This isn't the exact best explanation but that's part of the "puzzle" so I'll let you figure the rest out. But while you walk around the level you're trying to assess the best way to spread fires throughout because the number of tools you have to start fires are limited. As you get further into the game you're going to have to do the above without dying from various level hazards, and that's when I really think it pulled me in. Light all this stuff on fire in the most controllled and fast way possible, but also don't die. (There's a really quick level restart button so failure feels like failure, but you're back in it before you've really gotten down on yourself.) Other stuff....There are four characters to choose from and each one has a unique ability, but honestly I just end up playing Burnstar because well...he's really fast and I like to go fast even if it means I die a lot. Oh, there's actually a surprising amount of content here. The whole game has the like...I just bought an old N64 game feel where there's actually a ton of content shipped with the game..I guess what I'm trying to say is it feels complete. I've put quite a few hours in and I haven't even beat it yet. You have to work your way through all these worlds Mario style and I can't really remember how many more I have to go.

Bomberman meets puzzler, with a good difficulty balance in terms of easy to beat a level, but hard to 100% it. Controls are solid and the gameplay makes you really think about using your arsenal to the best of your abilities, in attempting to maximize the damage/coverage of the area and stars for you to get. The co-op is just a rehash of the single player however, so keep that in mind if you're looking for a different experience out of it. The problem will be the number of levels, while you have 60 levels and they all feel relatively compact and unique, and some replayability to 100% sections, that may not be enough for people at a 9-10 price tag. It's for puzzle fans and completionist fans, but others may want to wait for a sale. For more first impressions and Gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLYLaA0-BQY

我竟天真的以为这是一个塔防游戏来着！原来是解谜版炸弹人啊！好难啊！！！ 智商捉急外加找不到本地联机的人，含泪挥别~

[h1] Indie in Review: Burnstar [/h1] Check out the video review at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0UohF4fjLU One of my favorite things to do in a video game is blowing stuff up, and I’m sure there are a lot of you who feel the same way. Bomberman used to be a good option to scratch that particular itch, but after more than 40 entries in the franchise, they became rather stale. Enter Burnstar, an attempt to fuse the classic Bomberman gameplay with the elements of a puzzle game. And luckily for all of us pyromaniacs, this mix works surprisingly well. As I mentioned before, Burnstar is heavily inspired by the Bomberman franchise. So much in fact, that you immediately become familiar with the controls: You run around while placing bombs that create new routes through the level. There is one main difference: the goal of each level is not to blow up your enemy, but to blow up the level itself. Each mission has two progress bars. You fill the first with blowing up crates, and the second with collecting stars that are dropped by the objects you blow up. The most important aspect of Burnstar is strategically placing those bombs. You see, there is a certain hierarchy behind the crates. Three different sizes of crates, red, orange and yellow respectively, are scattered around the level. If a crate is set on fire, it blows up and burns smaller crates around them. This doesn’t work in reverse: a red crate can burn the orange and yellow ones, but yellow crates can’t set the red and orange ones on fire. This is an essential part of Burnstar, and mastering this mechanic is the key to completing the game. The percentage of burned crates isn’t the only victory requirement. You also have to collect a certain number of stars, that are hidden behind purple goo or underneath the level. Blow these up via the bombs or crates and the stars will appear. If you’ve played Bomberman before, you’re probably thinking that this all sounds pretty easy. Well, it isn’t. In Burnstar, you only get a certain amount of bombs. Make one mistake and you have to restart the level. Add that to the many times you’ll die because of an exploded crate or an enemy that appears out of nowhere, and you have the recipe for a challenging puzzler. Most of the difficulty won’t come from merely completing the levels. Completing Burnstar is no cakewalk, but finishing the 60 levels is definitely doable and will only take you a couple of hours. The meat of the game is perfecting every stage by blowing everything up and doing so in time. This requires a certain amount of trial & error, a mechanic that will appeal to some people but one that I’m not particularly fond of. What I like more are the various secrets you can collect. Based on the location you have to choose the right character, each with its own unique ability like dashing and teleporting, and then figure out how you have to reach the collectable in the first place. It’s basically a puzzle within a puzzle. As you can probably tell from this review, I like Burnstar a lot. It takes the best parts of Bomberman and puzzle games and combines them into one great whole. Even though perfecting the game isn’t for me, I had a lot of fun figuring out the puzzles and of course blowing stuff up. Whether you’re looking for a new puzzle game or a solid Bomberman alternative, you can’t go wrong with Burnstar.

Burnstar tiene un aire al Bomberman, aunque no es un escenario cuadrado entre enemigos. Es un juego de puzzles en el cual manejas a un personaje que puede usar bombas, cohetes y diversos artilugios, cuyo objetivo es el de obtener un alto porcentaje de estrellas en el nivel, de lo contrario no podrás pasar al siguiente nivel. Tienes un número limitado de bombas/cohetes etc por lo que debes saber donde poner cada uno para administrarlos bien. Es bastante adictivo, tiene varios mundos con bastantes fases cada una, con varios niveles desbloqueables si pasas cada pantalla perfecta con todo al 100%. Tiene muchos puzzles diferentes, tienes que ir quemando cajas, "lava" o como una especie de veneno inflamable que conduce las llamas, tuberias, cubos, interruptores... mucha variedad de puzzles a los que enfrentarse. Aún no me lo he pasado, pero por ahora es bastante entretenido y lo recomiendo para echarle un ratillo.

So you take bomberman and make it a puzzle game? I'm in! The first game i purchased for my N64 was Bomberman...Don't judge me I was a child! Burnstars similar concepts is what drew me in. Plus, I'm a fan of a well made puzzle game which this is. You play as one of 4 characters as you try to out smart the map and strategically place bombs to try and collect all the stars. Thats Burnstar in a nutshell. The music is great, it plays well and the actual puzzle mechanics are fun and challenging. If you like the idea of setting things on fire with bombs while solving interesting and unique puzzles then you should check out Burnstar! Especially now while it $1 off! =D If you want to see a little more gameplay heres a link to my first hour with Burnstar! It may still be loading =/ https://youtu.be/PB6okM3KBdo You can find more first looks, reviews and my podcast at www.earlyaccesspodcast.com all about Early Access and Indie titles.

Overlooked little game with bomberman esque feel. Co-op is fun and the puzzels are not mindlessly easy. Great game to have in your library for a rainy day!

I'm a human video game search engine. My Wishlist has 800 games on it. I watch game previews like other people watch TV, and I try probably 50 games a week. I've been playing video games of all sorts for 30 years. Am I bragging? Am I just sick? No, I'm just saying as emphatically as possible that Burnstar is STILL my favorite game of all time. Not my favorite remembered game - my favorite game to play right now. It's better couch than Overcooked OR Lovers in a Dangerous Space-Time, let me put it that way. No exaggeration. This game is tight. And to think when I first saw this game I thought it was a game for five year olds. Oh no, my friends. This is the quintessential isomorphic puzzle game. For solo OR seamless, perfect co-op play, Burnstar is the biggest must-have of all-time. To my way of thinking, this is Lego games on steroids, and so much more to the point than Lego games. Do yourself a favor and don't quit until you've reached at least level five or six. Things start to get good about then, and the puzzles just keep getting more challenging after that. Also, know that even after you've played through the 70 or so levels of this thing, there are then still surprises and challenges to make at least two more complete run thoughs fun as hell. Burnstar, Burnstar, Burnstar. Best unknown game ever. Should be in every living room. It should cost $30, too.

A hidden gem of a top-down puzzle game. You'll definitely enjoy this if you enjoy puzzle games, especially if you like top-down ones like chuck's/chip's challenge. There's even a competetitive aspect if you're into that - every stage has a speedrun leaderboard for any% and 100%. It took me about 14 hours to get gold on every original stage (but I didn't do any of the bonus worlds). The premise of this game is, for each level, to burn up and explode everything that can be burnt/exploded, collect all the stars, and to do so in as short of a time as possible. However, this isn't like Bomberman where you have an unlimited supply of bombs - every bomb is something that has to be picked up in the stage and is consumed when used. The time, stars, and burn percentage are flexible, too - you don't need to collect everything or come in under the par time for the level in order to advance. However, if you want to "gold" a level, you'll need to get 100% stars and burn rate and finish under the par time (but you don't have to do that all in a single run, so you can go for 100% one time and go for any% but under par in a subsequent run and you'll still earn a gold for that level). While you CAN simply play to just beat each stage, I think this game is the most fun if you shoot for getting gold on every stage. You could probably blow through this game in a few hours if you didn't try to get gold. Adding speed and finding ways to optimize your run for a given level is one of the key aspects of the fun of this game, IMO. So, the first time you play through a stage you'll probably take it slow and figure out what you need to do to get 100%, then later try to build speed and optimize in future replays. Towards the later stages, I found most of my time being spent optimizing and attempting to achieve the par time (after I had already figured out how to beat it with 100%). The gameplay of burning stuff is unique and satisfying. Since things take time to burn and explode, a key aspect of going fast is to figure out what to burn first so you can maximize the amount of things you have burning at once. But when you start to burn more things, you can open yourself up to getting killed and having to restart. Each character has different abilities, meaning there's multiple ways to complete stages, some faster than others. If you're creative you might even discover routes the designers never thought of. The level/puzzle design is excellent. It increases in difficulty and complexity as you get further into the game. New mechanics are introduced at a satisfying rate. My one suggestion would be to provide some sort of global leaderboard that takes into account your position on every stage, so you can see who is the overall top player or something like that. Overall, if you're a fan of puzzle games, I'd say this is a must-have. It can get very heavily discounted and there's plenty of hours of playtime as well as an aspect of competition and replayability if you're interested in climbing leaderboards. There's plenty of content, too. Even after getting gold on the main game you can still play the bonus worlds and collect the hidden saplings. I highly recommended this unless you're not a big fan of puzzle games. This game deserves a lot more attention than it's received, IMO, but I think that puzzle games in general tend to be less popular these days.

The puzzles are challenging. The level progresses. It's like going from easy mode to hard mode. Four playable characters each with different abilities. Music is great. Visuals are nice. Very fun game to play indeed.