Charlie the Duck

Very cute little platformer. Total throwback to old early-mid 90s computer platformers, this came out 20 years ago and absolutely feels it. I missed this the first time around so it was cool getting a new chance at discovering this. Simple to play and control but quite a bit of fun. I think if I had one major issues, it's that hitbox collision in this game is REALLY rough. On the first boss, you have to hit him from an absolute certain pixel. If you're even off by a bit, you'll miss and get hit. This part was rather frustrating especially when you're visually hitting him, but it's not working. I eventually got by it, but that moment, plus a few others, dampered things a bit for me. With that in mind, if you understand where the game comes from and can deal with that flaw, it's worth the look. If the flaw worries you but you're curious I'd wait for a sale.

Ein geiles Jump&Run. Hübsche Retro Grafik. Nette Musik und ein gehöriger Schwierigkeitsgrad, der von Level zu Level zu nimmt. Beim Ersten Boss hatte ich die meißten Probleme. Fans von 2d Platformern unbedingt zugreifen! Hier mein Let´s Play zum Spiel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpK00kPegrE

Charlie the Duck is an old-school classic platformer game like the original Mario games but with a duck which makes them better because ducks are cute and fun. Collect things, jump on heads and enjoy. https://youtu.be/b0JktIvUnhs

Definitely not worth 7 bucks. It's a rather simple Mario ripoff without powerups and mediocre level design.

"Partial" controller support is right, there's constant issues with it, such as me being forced to move backwards for a very long period of time, and having no momentum after some jumps, and up on the analogue stick being bound to jump. Until this game gets more fluid control methods for gamepads, i don't think i'll touch this one for a while.

While I didn't play this one [i]Back in the Day[/i]™ I did play one of its ancestors which is how I came across this. Y'see, back in the dial-up days I'd download just about anything and everything I could find on shareware sites like Gamehippo and CNET (yes, [i]that[/i] CNET, the AI Clickbait [i]CNET[/i]), and one concept I had a particular obsession with was being able to play "Mario" on the computer. You could find a lot of DOS remakes of things like the original Mario Bros arcade and Donkey Kong, but there was one Mario shareware game in particular that always caught my eye, which was Weiring Software's [i]Mario & Luigi[/i]. It was always kind of mysterious because it really looked and felt like the real thing while still having its own vibe, but there were only a few levels and that always had me wondering what the rest of the game was (In a wild twist turns out the circulated version was a hacked stolen version that was cut down and Weiring never actually meant to release it). But still, that memory remained, what [i]was[/i] the deal with that Mario DOS game? Going down that rabbit hole a year or two ago lead me to [i]Charlie the Duck[/i], which actually uses the same as that mysterious Mario game and playing [i]Charlie[/i] was kind of a revelation because it really feels like playing a fully realized version of Weiring's Mario and it's a pretty solid platformer in its own right. I'm honestly surprised I didn't find this earlier given how obsessed I am with anything remotely duck-related. Aesthetically the game is very pleasing, I've got a fascination with what I call the "shareware aesthetic" and i feel like 90's/2000's shareware games are an underlooked part of gaming history, especially considering how many people played them, and this hits all the marks. The pixel art is vibrant and cartoony while still having a refined, almost painterly look in places. Something I love about the shareware games of the 90's is they kind of evoke the game they're based on without feeling like an over-the-top deliberate homage. The "retro-inspired" games of today can kind of throw it in your face just [i]how[/i] retro they, but [i]Charlie the Duck[/i] manages to feel Mario-esque without getting super referencey and obnoxious about it. The music is also really nice and suits the environments well. Most of the platforming levels aren't overwhelmingly hard, but the nice art and chill music makes for a very relaxing, pleasant game that you can just vibe out to. That's not to say the game is a total pushover though. The first boss had me stuck for quite a while, I'd almost put it up there with the first boss of Game Gear Sonic 2 in terms of how seemingly unpredictable it is and I spent a long time on it. I generally don't give tips in reviews but this one is so hard I feel compelled to just say there's a one or two pixel wide sweet spot you should aim for where you can hit the boss's weak spot while avoiding the trajectory of its minions. Once I got past that bump the other bosses were pretty smooth sailling, but each one was fun. The game's easier levels have a fair bit of secrets to find, and the third world actually does require some precision and 3-2 in particular had some thoughtful and engaging puzzles. While I generally love the game, there are still some critiques to be made though. One of the common enemies you find is a caterpillar with 3 or 4 body segments that have spikes, but the head doesn't have spikes, so naturally I kept thinking that you could kill it if you jumped on the head, like a horizontal version of Mario's Pokey enemy, but even jumping on the head will hurt you and that felt a bit inconsistent with the other enemies, especially since one of the boss fights is a scaled-up version of the caterpillar where you [i]do[/i] have to jump on his head. In some ways the game is even simpler than the original [i]Super Mario Bros[/i] since you don't have a projectile and the game's modern, non-dosbox version doesn't have a run button (though Charlie moves at a good clip), but I don't think that's much of an issue because I do enjoy how it feels to move Charlie. It's very much in the vein of say, an Amiga or Commodore 64 game where you only have one action button and if you're fine with that kind of game, you'll probably like this. Charlie's sense of weight and momentum is actually great and one of the games most enjoyable pleasures is the feeling of bouncing of an enemy for big air, then landing on another one and stringing together a combo. It took me about two hours total to beat the game, though I did take a break from it when I was struggling with the first boss, and I think for the price it's a good chunk of well-made content. I don't know how enticing it will be for an audience used to flashier platformers, but there's something very calming about the stripped-down, back-to-basics approach combined with a pleasant aesthetic that made it fun to play through and it also works perfect on Steam Deck. Anyone who downloaded a ton of shareware back in the early 2000's will probably enjoy this and even if you don't have that background it's still worth trying for how generally nice it is. I would honestly love it if Weiring Software brings more of their backlog to steam, we need more classic shareware to be preserved in its full form.

Nog steeds zo leuk als toen ik 4 was :D

Remember playing this game when I was younger on different websites. What a nostalgia.

Um jogo pode ser difícil? pode. Pode ser desafiador? pode. O que não pode é ser os dois E ter colisões inconsistentes, partes em que é humanamente IMPOSSÍVEL não sofrer danos. ou chefes que tem um hitbox/programação rídiculos. Nem pela nostalgia eu achei que valeu à pena.

I'd like to recommend this but there is a big flaw. So first off the graphics and sound are great. Also the developer has fixed the games difficulty a tad for this version. The old Dos version is way more difficult but don't think what you got here is any better ;). The biggest flaw in this game is when it comes to the bosses and the hit detection. You will be lucky if you beat the first 2 bosses. Spoiler the last boss is easier then the first two bosses. The fish was some what hard but I found to get a hit on him you have to wait until the boss moves down to make the hit. As for the second boss being the bird you'll be lucky to make any hit you kind of just have to guess it. Now for the final boss you may lose a few times but you'll eventually get it. I beat him with full health and you maybe able to do that with the first boss but no way the second. To me this was for nostalgia but that's all it is for. Once you beat you'll probably never go back cause of its high difficulty and the achievements should be way to hard to get so if your a achievement hunter have fun ;). I just can't honestly recommend this to my friends unless you're into games with high difficulty something like what the Amiga brings but kind of worse :/.