HAMISH

This game is great so far, it's a shame how little attention it's getting, it's obviously made with a lot of care and passion! Although it took me a bit in the beginning to understand the structure of the game the level design is great and each level is fun to learn and get better at. Even though it's a simple thing I love the swinging mechanic, it adds variety and a sense of speed and momentum to movement. A few pieces of feedback in the hour I've played so far: - Your movement feels slippery, like you're running on ice. I'm not sure if it's a conscious choice but personally I think it should be tightened up, especially a difficult game like this where precision is everything. In general though the game feels really good to play especially when you get some momentum and find a rhythm in swinging, jumping on enemies and collecting gems. - (was fixed right away) I ran into a crash on the snow level. Right after you start skiing down the mountain, there are a set of spikes that I kept hitting and the game would crash every time I did which was pretty annoying since I lost progress every time. - Wall jumping seems a bit finicky at times. Sometimes when jumping to a wall and then jumping off of that wall the game wouldn't register it so I wouldn't end up jumping. It could be me though. - I'm not a big fan of the 3 lives thing. In a game that relies so heavily on trial and error, it just feels like I'm wasting time when I want to spend my time learning the level and getting better, only to die a couple times and go back to the very beginning. I'm looking forward to playing more and I hope this review helps other hardcore platformer fans find this game!

I am a simple guy... I see a platformer with a grappling hook and I buy it. I am having a lot of fun with the game and since there are no reviews yet, I figured I would give my impressions after playing for an hour and a half. The controls are pretty fluid, and there are nuances that you will figure out when attempting to do the more difficult sections. I am not sure what actual tech there is in the game yet since there isn't a tutorial or anything, but I imagine there are some ways to schmoove. Speaking of schmooving, the game was obviously built for speed runners. It has an in-game timer, leaderboards, and it seems like they put some thought into routing as well. When you start the game, you are in a big HUB world looking for keys to unlock the levels. I have only unlocked one gate so far, and then that's where the game actually takes shape. These gates have short levels, similar to NES platformers (ie Mario), and you have a limited amount of lives to beat all of them in a row. I really like the level design, but I think giving you limited lives is frustrating and a bit out of touch with modern gaming. I totally understand why a game dev would put lives into a game, but some of these levels will take A LOT of trial an error to beat, and dying 3 times will send you all the way back to 1-1. As much as I enjoy difficult games, this seems more like a way to make it artificially difficult. Plus, it would make practicing these levels for eventual speedrunning a lot more tedious. That is really my only complaint about the game. If you are into things like Kaizo Mario, Celeste, or other intense speedrunning platformers, I can almost guarantee that you will like the feel of this game. The music, the art style, and the vibes are all great, so if you can endure the pain of repeating long sections over and over, then you should try this one immediately!