KIN

[h1]KIN 2D [/h1] The 2D version of this game is flawed due to its horrible camera angles. Precision platforming has never been so infuriating. [h1]Pros:[/h1] 👍 Colourful environment. 👍Steam achievements [h1]Cons:[/h1] 👎Camera angles constantly force unnecessary deaths. 👎Combat system is a little frustrating also. 👎Puzzles are a little bland. 👎Tutorial although welcomed did not explain all mechanics needed. [h1] First Impressions[/h1] I was looking forward to this game. A colourful platform game with puzzles and boss fights. It sounded interesting. Unfortunately, I cannot recommend this game in 2D mode. The aerial camera should be ideal for boss fights but you can’t see the entire arena and that meant being surprised by opponents who appeared from nowhere. In the aerial view it is extremely difficult to navigate the platforming aspects of the game. I was constantly falling of the edge which felt incredibly frustrating. The freeview camera is a lot better for platforming as it sits behind your shoulder and is perfect for navigating the narrow ledges necessary to complete the game. It is ineffective for fighting though as it is too close and difficult to see what is happening. There are equal amounts of puzzle, platforming and combat mechanics. At points it can get quite frantic and because aspects of the game require different camera angles you are always trying to change camera angle to fit the scenario, often resulting in death by falling or being killed by an enemy. The controls are also quite loose and I felt this added to my demise on many occasions. Sometimes it was a challenge just to walk in a straight line across a narrow ledge. The game is quite difficult, hampered by the camera angles. I had to change to the easiest difficulty level just to progress. I normally try to complete games before I give a review but this time, I just got too frustrated to continue. I have tried numerous times to play this game but it just began to become annoying and unenjoyable. The environments look nice and that is what instantly appealed to me but the gameplay is a bit lackluster and the puzzles are quite bland. Puzzles mainly involve hitting pillars with your sword or frisbee, creating bridges or platforms for you to navigate to other areas. Sometimes these platforms disappear after a certain amount of time, and sometimes they are coloured red for energy zaps and green for energy gains. At times you will need to work out puzzles whilst being attacked. This is where the camera really kicks you in the nuts. Some enemies appear to be invulnerable and fire at you constantly. Therefore, you have to jump, dodge, attack and work out puzzles simultaneously. The camera does not allow you to do this effectively. The fighting mechanics are also a little frustrating sometimes. The frisbee needs to be charged up for full power and this often becomes annoying in the heat of battle. It never goes in the direction you want it to go either. A lot of the puzzles require you to hit pillars with your frisbee from distance and you can try two or three times to hit the pillar even though you think you are facing it correctly. I suspect that this game was made for virtual reality and the 2D offering was perhaps an afterthought. My review is solely based on the 2D version. I do not own a virtual reality headset. If you have VR then this may well be a worthwhile experience if the camera angles work, but the 2D version is far too frustrating to play and I could not recommend it for this reason. [h1]Gameplay[/h1]🕹️ There are three main elements to the game. Platforming, puzzle and combat. [h1]Platforming[/h1] There are 52 mini levels. The goal is to get to the exit by navigating your character from the start gate to the end gate. There will inevitably be chasms which you will need to cross by activating pillars which create bridges for you to traverse or platforms for you to jump on and reach greater heights. The pillars are activated by a swipe of your sword or if the pillar is out of reach, you can throw your frisbee at it. The ledges are narrow and a change in direction is often needed to navigate them. You will also be expected to drop down from great heights and jump up to reach gates. Instead of aiding you in this process, the camera angle will make your task much harder and you will fall of the edge for no reason countless times. You have an energy bar and a power bar and you are allowed four lives to navigate the mini course before you have to start again from the start of that area. You will lose energy from being hit by enemies and the power bar determines how hard you throw the frisbee. After completing some of these mini levels, you will be faced with a boss who you must defeat to get to the next area. [h1] Puzzles [/h1] Puzzles mainly involve you hitting a pillar to activate bridges or ledges. In later levels the puzzles become slightly more diverse. Bridges can be different colours which will either replenish or deplete your energy. They might have a time limit before they disappear and sometimes there are lasers which need to be turned in a certain direction to reveal your path forward. There are three difficulty levels for the puzzles. Explorer, Adventurer and Acrobat. Explorer increases the time you have to complete puzzles and bridges remain intact for longer. Acrobat is the opposite and Adventurer is the default. [h1]Combat[/h1] There are a few different enemies in the game. Some are a lot easier than others. Every level will contain enemies situated in strategic areas for you to kill before you progress. The majority of these enemies once defeated will disappear and leave you to your own devices but on occasion enemies will continually attack you whilst you are trying to solve puzzles or navigating the environment. Some enemies require a full powered frisbee attack whilst others can be defeated by a few strikes of your sword. They all have their individual attack patterns so you can predict what they will do. The sword attack requires you to lunge forward uncontrollably often resulting in you lunging off the edge of the platform and to your death. The frisbee is hard to direct and because it is an integral part of puzzling and fighting this can be tiresome after a while. After a few mini levels you are presented with a boss battle. These are probably the most exciting and worthwhile parts to the game. They can be very challenging and you will need to dodge attacks by using your roll mechanic, jump over laser blasts and take out auxiliary enemies whilst avoiding boss attacks. Usually after killing minions you get a chance to attack the boss. After a few waves of rising difficulty finally the boss will be defeated and you can continue to the next area. There are three difficulty levels for combat; Explorer, Adventurer and Fighter. Playing explorer results in the enemies having slower reflexes and health and Fighter is the opposite. Adventurer is the default. [h1]Sound:[/h1] 🎵 A futuristic sounding menu tune and some nice special effects. The levels sometimes feel a bit empty without background tunes however. [h1]Graphics:[/h1] 📺 The graphics are very colourful and bright and are the definite high point of the game. [h1]Conclusion[/h1] The camera angles ruined this for me. If they could fix the camera angle somehow, it would improve the game immensely. The game doesn’t really stand out in any area. The puzzles are dull and uninteresting and the combat seems basic. The boss fights are certainly more interesting but the game feels repetitive and the countless deaths due to camera angles soon becomes annoying. Curator Info: [quote][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/7871885/]Follow our curator page:[b] OCG-Curations[/b] if you like and want to see more reviews like this one.[/url][/quote] [quote][url=https://www.original-reviews.com/] Visit our website, [b]Original Reviews[/b][/url][/quote]

2 minute video review → https://youtu.be/rCVG03SHWaY The game KIN is a beautifully abstract puzzle platformer that you can play in either flatscreen or VR. Using either a gamepad or keyboard and mouse you need to guide the tiny hero through tough robot battles and tricky puzzles. Each of your attacks will be either red or blue. A red attack from your sword will always cause damage, but your throwing disc, if you tap the button, will be blue to slow down enemies. And if you hold down and charge the disc then it’ll be a red damaging attack. The same color rules apply to the enemy attacks, so if an enemy is red or blue you can see what kind of attack they have. You can also sprint and roll quickly, which you’ll need to do often as the combat can get really intense, especially when you’re outnumbered by bots. As for the puzzles you’ll find “beat the clock” challenges as well as contraptions that you’ll need to solve. In the settings you’ll find separate difficulty sliders for both combat and puzzles, I’ve never seen a puzzle difficulty slider before so I thought that was pretty cool. I found the combat incredibly challenging. Even after turning down the difficulty to easy I get stuck at the 2nd boss battle. The 2nd boss just totally destroys me, and as of today I haven’t been able to beat this boss. So in this game you’ll be dying a lot, but I think you’ll want to keep playing because the visual design is just so fresh and cool. It’s a very well made platformer. The developer has stated on the forums that the campaign will take 2-4 hours to beat. But based on how difficult I found the game, I suspect it’ll take much more than that. For a gorgeous but very punishing game, I highly recommend it.

KIN is an utterly fantastic VR platformer that has flown under everyone's radar. Heck, I can't even remember how I stumbled upon it (I think it was mentioned in a single post on a Reddit thread?). But I'm glad I found it as KIN is the third-person platformer I've been looking for. Several developers have made great attempts at this genre (notably Moss and Lucky's Tale), but KIN just feels way fresher and more interesting than those games. As others have mentioned, you play through levels solving simple puzzles and fighting monsters in flashy twitch-based combat to progress. Some parts are harder than others, but overall the difficulty is pretty fair. I only played the VR version so cannot comment on the flatscreen mode, but I imagine it would be more difficult as certain rooms and boss fights were way easier when I was able to lean around to better view the area. If you like games like FEZ and Hyper Light Drifter and would like to see their aesthetics and combat transitioned to a 3D VR platformer, then I'd highly recommend KIN. It is a bummer that it is so short (finished the game in under 3 hours), but I had a blast the entire time. I hope this developer is working on something else as I'd love to play more in this style. (If the dev is reading: Have you considered porting this to Quest? There's a major dearth of native platformers on there so this could make a real splash on there.)

Very nice game visually and looks great in VR. Platforming and controls are fine with gamepad. Currently I'm stuck at the first boss fight since it is very challenging for me at the default difficulty and I already died at least 20 times. But I like the game and I'm happy with the purchase. Update after finishing the game: Actually the game is not that difficult. Even all the boss fights are quite okay after you figure out the right approach. The problem is it might be unclear at first what is the right approach. The gameplay is not perfect but still I recommend this game, especially if you can play in VR.

The main game mechanics are solid and the story is simple but effective, but the biggest thing holding the game back is the lack of content. As of writing this review ive put 2.6 hours into the game. Thats how long it takes to beat the main story..... There are no extra collectables, no alternate game modes, nothing to unlock, no hidden secrets, no difficulty options, no real replayability whatsoever. You play the game, beat the main story mode and never play it again. This would be fine if it was a decent lenght but 2.6 hours of story for 15$ doesnt seem worth it. Honestly anything could work here to give the game more things to do, maybe add a new character after you beat the game. Say the new character has half the hp of the main character but has infinite charge meter. or something like that maybe some boss rush game mode would help too a new difficulty for the game that gives you a limited time to beat each level optional hard collectables in each level idk, anything to extend the replayability of this game. its saddens me to not recommend this as the main game is really solid but there is nothing here. Imagine if mario odyssey only had 2 levels and 1 boss, while mario odyssey has great movement options and is fun to play, the lack of content would feel like a waste of a great system thats this game awesome game feel and mechanics, no content to back it up

excellent game in VR. wish there were more platform games in this style/the style of Moss. Cannot praise the game enough apart from the fact it is short. I would wait for it to go on sale then it is worth it.

Well made, highly polished platformer for VR that just feels great to play. Puzzles are not overly frustrating, and combat feels tight.

This is one of my all time favorite indie platformer games i've ever played. unique and very fun. can be played pancake mode but vr version is amazing, great story, great level design, amazing boss battles and amazing sound quality/effect. heavily recommend.

A phone game that is actually a game. How bout that.

Super VR Spiel. Im normalen Modus ist es bock schwer. Im Prinzip ist es ein kleines Souls Like mit fester Kamera. Es hat mir richtig gut gefallen. Super schade das es komplett unter gegangen ist. Mir hat es richtig gut gefallen. Danke! Ich hätte wirklich gerne mehr solcher Spiele in VR. Ich kann den anderen Kram den es so gibt echt nicht mehr sehen. Spiele fast nur noch Flat Spiele mit der UEVR Mod.