Hoplegs

5/10 if only it was fun + workshop + local co-op

Two major control flaws take the satisfaction to zero. I was hoping for a frustration precision platformer but there is no precision here just faulty controls. First the biggest issue leading to inability for any amount of precision, extending any direction more than a full-pull does not interact as intended, where what should happen is a little bump instead of fully pressing the button to launch in whatever direction the "limb" moves out but when the half press goes back in the momentum is reversed like it decided to grab on to the surface you are trying to get away from and you are not moved. This leaves the only functional way of movement as full presses to launch in a direction with full momentum, but in some levels you need a smaller bump and doing a full jump overshoots your targer so it really hinders the game. Second is the constant rotating of the controls to extend the protrusions. Instead of having the controls be mapped to a fixed surface on the cube they are referential to whatever surface is most-facing the edges of the screen. So if your cube is on a flat ground surface, S will always be the bottom and D will always be the right side (unless you have one already held down, which fixes the controls for a time), but if you are rotating which is a huge aspect of this game whenever the faces rotate more than 45 degrees the side would be closer to perpendicular to a new side of the screen and ALL THE CONTROLS ROTATE! This takes all the precision out of the game when you are lining up an angled jump and happen to rotate one degree over the wrong part comes out. Oh but don't worry, the "Locked Rotation" option in the gameplay section just takes away all rotation instead of locking the buttons during rotation. Aside from these issues is a personal complaint about the physics that seems intended for gameplay but does more harm than good for being unrealistic. When you full punch out from a limb there is no momentum change of the overall body which is correct, but then when that limb retracts there is suddenly momentum introduced and the character is now moving???? This is completely incorrect especially in midair situations but somehow there is some imaginary recoil introduced even though there is no external contact, which even further punishes a missed projection. All of these combined leads to the gameplay feeling more random instead of skill, so even when you get to the end of a stage the satisfaction is not there. Hoplegs is trying to be something like Getting Over It without understanding what makes that style appealing, and it's definitely not just changing the Quit to Desktop button in the menu to "Shut down the game and cry"...

Hoplegs is yet another of literally thousands of console ported 2D retro platformers infesting Steam and lowering the average quality of all video games everywhere. This Nintendo Switch platformer has one quirky premise, that you jump by extending a leg from the square that your character consists of... that's all there is to it, for the most part, although you do need to consider the angle of your square and which facing will be firing off a leg to make you bounce. This is not the gimmick that was needed to save the old, dead platformer genre. From a technical perspective, the game doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard. The game features simple, cartoony 2D graphics, of the type you normally expect to see in low effort mobile apps. 3D graphics programming does require a degree of skill and competence and unfortunately not all developers have the budget or talent to deliver this, despite 3D graphics cards hitting the mainstream in the 1990's. Considering this is being evaluated as a PC game, having the graphics phoned in like this isn't going to result in a high quality, visually impressive game that PC gamers are used to seeing. Because this is designed for consoles, it carries a number of deliberate design deficiencies. Compromises were made to cater to the inferior console gaming appliances that the game was designed for. These are unfortunate compromises and limitations that PC gamers shouldn't be forced to accept, but it's evident that PC was a second thought for the console-centric developers. The game is deficient as a result of these choices, and would have been so much better without the handicaps that designing games for consoles forces upon a game. Once more, console peasants have made gaming worse for everyone. This looks and feels like a mobile app, but I wasn't able to find it on the app stores. Maybe it was removed, maybe it was rejected by Apple and Google (they do have more rigorous quality standards than Valve does for Steam, after all). Regardless, for all intents and purposes Hoplegs might as well be a mobile app, it has the same limitations and dumbed down qualities. It's impossible to recommend such a game to PC gamers. We don't spend all this money building gaming rigs so we can pretend they're iPhones and play games that might as well be mobile apps. These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game. The poor quality of this game is reflected by how many people spent time with it. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the all-time peak player number was only 15 players. This is a remarkably low number, and now, the only player activity occurs once or twice a month, presumably someone loading it up to see what it is then quickly uninstalling it. Considering there's over 120 million gamers on Steam and well over 50,000 games for gamers to choose from (over 9,000 completely free titles), the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality game is to be expected. Warning: This game behaves as spyware and collects "telemetry" and personally identifying information. While there is an option to disable this, there's no guarantee that will work. The developer provides an option to disable the spyware in the options menu, but the EULA says this is only possible by going to Unity and asking them to please try to prevent the developer from gathering personally identifiable information on you because he likes to spy on gamers. Worse, the developers turned this on by default to try to spy on as many gamers as possible. The developers will make the unverifiable claim that this data isn't personally identifying, of course that's BS as they're collecting IPs and all kinds of other information about gamers, when combined with other profiling data this can 100% identify an individual. They say it's for "QA" purposes but there's no guarantee they're not profiling you or selling your data to third parties as they spy on you. Should you trust them? Of course not... if they had any concerns about user safety and privacy, [i]they wouldn't have built spyware into their game and turned it on by default![/i]. There's simply no reason to trust them and gamers should avoid this game because of this unacceptable privacy invasion. You're forced to sign a highly questionable yet legally unenforceable End User License Agreement. This agreement includes questionable (and possibly law breaching) privacy requirements that no gamer should ever have to engage in. Developers must learn they are here to serve gamers, not control them. I had my cat walk over the keyboard while the EULA was displaying, which fixed that problem for me. Hoplegs has the total ripoff price of $18 USD, for which you could easily get any number of recent AAA games. Yes, this spyware costs more than Red Dead Redemption 2 and the entire Mass Effect Trilogy. What an insult. This is also competing with over 9,000 free games available on Steam, many of them far better than this paid product. Given the defects and quality issues with the game, coupled with the unrealistic price, this is impossible to recommend. Because this is the kind of game you can just play for free on mobile phones, it's impossible to recommend anyone should pay money for the same experience on Steam. This game features a number of suspicious, likely fake positive reviews. The reviews all appear at almost exactly the same time, very shortly after the game launched on Steam, all have a direct Steam purchase of the game, and all have very similar wording and writing style. This is highly unusual given the very low quality of the game and poor player counts. The "Positive" review score on this game should be taken with a large grain of salt. This might be done to deceive and scam gamers into paying for a bad product. [b][quote][url=https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/marketing/profile]Profile Features Limited![/url][/quote][/b]Valve have marked this game as "Profile Features Limited" at the time of this review. This is usually caused by poor sales figures and low community acceptance for the game (to date). Until this status changes, this game will not give you +1 to your Game Collector badge count, appear in profile achievements or any other Steam meta-accomplishments, nor can it be displayed in some profile showcases. If these factors are important to you, it may be worth holding off before buying this game.

I think HopLegs is a pretty neat platformer for folks who like a challenge or absolute suffering. I put sometme into the game and the fun visuals accompanied by the charming music really starts it off well! The sense of accomplishment felt when getting through a level absolutely makes up for the time screaming and cursing from accidentally catapulting yourself backwards. Also if you want to make sure that others feel your torment from the game there is a level editor! So you can build your own platforming hellscapes to test your friends endurance and put severe anguish on your relationship. And with multiplayer soon to come this will be a great couch co-op game to live, laugh, love, scream, and drink with your friends. Something that really stuck with me when playing the game is when you quit the game it says "Shut down the game and cry". Sometimes you just need a good cry, so play HopLegs.

Увлекательный платформер, который сломает вашу голову, как только куб повернется на одну грань в любую из сторон. Игра заставляет обдумывать решения, поскольку каждый неверный прыжок может вернуть вас на начало подъема. В игре присутствует совместное прохождение. Довольно весело толкать своего тиммейта чтобы тот улетал сразу к контрольной точке. Некоторые уровни мы проходили с помощью камеры, которая выталкивает игрока, если твой тиммейт ушел дальше тебя. 10/10 четвероногих кубов

Hoplegs, developed and published by WhyKev, is a platformer that deliberately breaks one of the genre’s most fundamental expectations: movement should feel natural. Instead, it builds its entire design around an awkward, unconventional control scheme where each button corresponds to a different leg of your character. What emerges from that idea is not just a quirky gimmick, but a full rethinking of how players interact with space, balance, and momentum in a platforming environment. The premise is minimal, almost nonexistent, and that’s by design. You control a simple cube-like character outfitted with four independently controlled legs, navigating a wide range of obstacle-filled levels. There’s no narrative framework pushing you forward—progression is driven entirely by your ability to understand and master the movement system. Early on, even basic actions like walking or climbing feel unintuitive. The game resists instinct, forcing you to slow down and consciously think about how each input affects your position. This initial friction can be jarring, but it’s also where the game begins to establish its identity. Over time, the awkwardness gives way to a surprising level of control. What first feels chaotic gradually becomes something more deliberate, as players learn to coordinate their inputs and develop a sense of rhythm. Movement stops being about reacting and becomes about planning—deciding which leg to move, when to shift weight, and how to maintain balance while navigating hazards. This learning process is the core of the experience, and it creates a strong sense of progression that doesn’t rely on traditional upgrades or unlocks. Improvement comes from understanding, not from external systems. The level design supports this evolution effectively. Early stages introduce the mechanics in relatively controlled environments, allowing players to experiment without overwhelming pressure. As the game progresses, levels become more complex, incorporating elements like shifting platforms, environmental hazards, and unconventional physics. These challenges are not just about precision—they’re about adapting your understanding of movement to new situations. The inclusion of a level editor and community-created content further extends this, offering a wide variety of stages that explore the mechanic in creative ways. Multiplayer adds another dimension to the experience. Cooperative play turns an already demanding control system into a shared challenge, requiring communication and coordination between players. The inherent unpredictability of movement often leads to chaotic and humorous moments, especially when multiple players are trying to navigate the same obstacles. Competitive modes amplify this unpredictability, creating scenarios where skill and randomness intersect in entertaining ways. These modes don’t necessarily add depth to the core mechanics, but they do enhance the game’s replayability and social appeal. Visually, Hoplegs adopts a simple and colorful aesthetic that aligns with its playful tone. The character design is intentionally minimal, ensuring that the focus remains on movement rather than visual detail. Environments are varied enough to keep the experience engaging, though they serve more as functional spaces than as immersive worlds. The presentation is clean and readable, which is essential given the complexity of the control scheme. Despite its strengths, the game’s central idea is also its biggest limitation. The control system, while innovative, is inherently niche and may not resonate with all players. The deliberate awkwardness can feel more frustrating than rewarding, particularly for those who prefer more traditional platforming mechanics. Additionally, while the levels introduce new challenges, the core concept does not evolve significantly, which can make the experience feel repetitive once the novelty wears off. Ultimately, Hoplegs is a game that fully commits to its concept, for better and for worse. It offers a unique and often satisfying take on platforming that rewards patience, experimentation, and a willingness to embrace its unconventional design. It is not a game that aims for broad appeal, but for those who engage with its mechanics, it provides a memorable and distinctive experience that stands apart from the genre’s norms. Rating: 7/10

my avatar is me after playing this game