Claire a la Mode

As a huge fan of cruse crackers.. this.. wasn't up to snuff. Felt undercooked unfortunately. I see the appeal, don't get me wrong. However.. compared to curse crackers? This is just... not it. For like 7 dollars? Sure. 15 though...? Not so much. Get it on sale, not full price.

Really fun short platformer with still so many secrets i gotta hunt for still!

This is a great arcade platformer. It's so fast that it keeps the fact that there's a run button secret. Death is cheap and unpunishing and extra lives abound. Learning the clean routes through rooms is a ton of fun. Learning to weave them all together and make deathless level runs is a complete joy. Fun to play through once and very fun to play through repeatedly. Only downside is that although you can give Sparky headpats, you cannot give Resolve headpats. She works so hard she needs them. Also Jita is the best.

would highly recommend this game for speed runners. the peeps in the discord community LOVE this game and its lore but also RUNNING through games QUICK lots of tools, beautiful pixel art and fun levels to playthrough over and over again

Fun platformer packed with charm, lots of character and some great tunes. It starts out very Kirby-like in that the levels are quite easy and the challenge comes mainly from finding every secret (or honing your speed running strats), but eventually some higher skill areas do appear, and there are a ton of different characters to experiment with. The game delivers a lot of potential depth for speed runners and secret hunters, and also a wealth of (admittedly confusing at first) lore, which ties in to Colorgrave's wider universe. Familiarity with Curse Crackers in particular will help with getting more out of the plot, but Claire is a very enjoyable time either way.

I felt a bit lost and confused at first but after the first couple of levels I got a grasp on the plot. I thought this was going to be a baking game. This is not a baking game. It's a fast platformer with random minigames sprinkled in as level obstacles/fights. It's very generous with extra lives and boss fights are not hard so its good for casual gaming. Enjoyed clearing the levels for the medals and going back to find all the missing collectables. I'm in love with the worldbuilding Colorgrave does so I was very surprised to find this takes place after the events of Curse Crackers. This definitely amped up the interest level for me. Overall the only want I have is a quick reset option for doing deathless stage challenges but otherwise no real complains. I'll admit I have a slight bias because I really enjoy Colorgrave and their games but if you like fast arcade-y platforming then you'll probably enjoy this game.

Cute and fun! With a whole ton of lore and answers to questions you'd be left with if you played Curse Crackers. Pros: * The OST has no business being as good as it is. * Nice gameplay involving careful motion and accidents due to jumping too hard or not as hard as necessary, or moving slower or faster than required. * Optional two-player coach co-op! * Two or three very strong lines of story development that were totally unexpected and super good. Cons: * Storytelling is a bit more cinematic and dialogue-based (less organic and natural, so to speak) than in other games by the same team (Prodigal, Curse Crackers, and April Grove), and I think it was less enjoyable/ not fascinating like the other games. * There are tons of characters that are not as different from one another to justify their prescence, in my opinion. I would have preferred longer or more levels or more elaborate dialogue, and less playable characters. Jita especially is very bland and forgettable, and the crowd of unlockable characters was not especially memorable or interesting to me, and the new characters that seemed to be partially fleshed out suddenly disappeared (like Rory). I had a lot of expectations about Bee, the main villain (from the demo, and what the story seemed to be pointing towards before release), but she was super bland. Bramble is super boring too. * Vivian (who was one of the best characters) was somewhat underwhelming and is hitting rock bottom, haha. She made four lame shrek jokes, and was not as unpredictable and subtly cool/diverse (she felt like a bad copy of herself, wiith a couple nice comebacks, but not vivianesque). * Levels are a bit too spatially simple, and visually not as gorgeous/ stunning/ completely mind-blowing as the ones in Prodigal, Veritus, and Curse Crackers. The game nonetheless has a nice and polished flow, and really accomplishes the heist / rush feeling of pressure and speed. * The OST did not work that well with the first five levels (perhaps because the game changed so much and those tracks were designed with the previous concept in mind). * Bosses in general were monotone, and some kinda boring.

I'd still recommend it, but with caveats. I love the music, the art is all very good, and the story is more Colorgrave(Good). The gameplay, though, is frustrating for me. The normal speed feels a little slow (which is fine), while sprinting is horrendously fast and floaty, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. I was constantly overshooting, barreling off edges, and bumping into enemies because of it. It's not a deal breaker, but just a heads up if you're impatient and have anger issues. The one hit nature and floaty sprint will get you.

( full review: https://www.gaming-parrot.com/post/claire-a-la-mode-review-gimme-ice-cream ) Claire a la Mode is the latest game from Colorgrave, makers of Curse Crackers and the excellent Prodigal. This is a follow-up to CC and repeatedly references that game's protagonist, although I had forgotten her name and didn't realize there was a connection until most of the way through, so you'll be fine if you haven't played it. There's a stronger connection in terms of gameplay, since both are GBC-styled puzzle platformers that are fairly quick to play through but have a lot of optional content. Claire consists of about 15 levels divided across three chapters. Each chapter has two or three playable characters who all have their own gimmick, and while every level is beatable with every character, most levels have collectibles that can only be reached by a subset of them. That's a positive in the sense that it adds replay value and helps the characters feel distinct, but also a negative in that you're sometimes left unsure if you can't reach a collectibles because you're not approaching it correctly or because you brought the wrong character. Fortunately, there's plenty of game here even if you decide to just ignore all of the collectibles. Levels usually contain a dozen or so different screens and almost always have a minigame or boss fight that's never used again. Finishing the game also unlocks a host of challenge modes if you want to keep playing past the credits. The moment-to-moment gameplay will be very familiar if you've played CC or any GBC puzzle platformer. Everything other than bosses dies in one hit and you mostly interact with the world through jumping and throwing things. Dying immediately because you brushed against an enemy can be frustrating, but there are plenty of opportunities to stock up on lives and losing one typically just means being warped back to the start of the screen without resetting the enemies. Boss fights usually do require perfect play, but none of the ones that kick you out after a death have very complex patterns, so it's usually not too hard to figure them out before you lose many lives. All in all, nothing revolutionary, but it's well done. Claire also continues Colorgrave's streak of excellent soundtracks. There's a ton of variety here, and while I don't know if either the music or graphics could actually run on GBC hardware, they at least look the part. The story, meanwhile, has more going on than just about anything you'd have seen in those days, but isn't anything mindblowing by modern standards. There are a couple of fun characters and some funny scenes, but it likely won't stick with you unless you make the effort to read all of the collectible books. I didn't, and that may be why I have no idea who a few of the antagonists were. Claire a la Mode delivers a few hours of platforming that are somehow nostalgic and innovative at the same time. The game does just about enough to justify the price tag and is enjoyable throughout, but I think it needed a more substantial closing chapter that used all of the characters to really take it to the next level. As it is, it's pretty good.

I found this game to be a solid, enjoyable time. I think the game fumbles its more arcadey aspects, the score system is exploitable and disincentivizes a ton of collectables on repeat playthroughs, and most of the minigames are really shallow. The core get to the end, run, jump, and chuck stuff gameplay works well enough though, and the arcadey stuff doesn't really hold the game down. Levels are very memorable, it's very nice how outside of post-game challenge levels, each level has its own distinct theme. It's cool and fun getting to play as so many different characters with their own special moves, although the levels never really get to take full advantage of any character in particular. If you haven't played Curse Crackers, this game's predecessor, this game's world might feel kinda scatterbrained. I think think the main narrative would be simple enough to follow though, and I moreso enjoy this game's writing for the character dialogue. I ended up with like 3x the amount of playtime I initially expected to because I joined a community search for secrets, and wrote a guide.