Sir Noggin

Sinclair Strange is specialized in making pixelated retro games that feel authentic, this time it's the turn of [b]Sir Noggin[/b], a platformer that is inspired by the Sega Master System aesthetic, complete with "ugly" cover art featuring those damn grids. On the contrary the bright in-game graphics are quite cute and, while not referencing any specific title, seem clearly inspired by Sonic, Wonder Boy, Kirby and Mario games. It's also quite a bit easier than most of those, since the double jump, long-reaching sword swings, shield to parry enemy bullets, abundance of health items and sub-weapons, and the ability to restart from every zone reached, reduce the challenge to a minimum. But it's not meant to be an adventure on an epic scale, just a simple arcade-style game where one should try to 1CC it with the biggest possible score (since there are infinite continues but dying shaves off a certain number of points). Precise controls help reach this goal, ensuring that getting defeated is not the game's fault. And after completing the game there are still a boss rush mode and a few simple challenges (time trial, no-weapon mode etc.), nothing ground-breaking but it's fun while it lasts. My only problems are that you can't control the music volume and a couple of achievements are bugged (in that I got them even if I should haven't!), but for the rest I had a good time with Sir Noggin's quest and I'd like to see more similar tiny retro games to spend a couple lazy afternoons.

This developer hits it out of the park AGAIN>

This is a great little retro style action platformer with colorful, big juicy pixel graphics and awesome chip tune music. Total play time to beat it was about an hour and 2 minute or so for me. Sir Noggin is fun but not overly challenging, only two boss fights gave me some challenge but that's okay, I wanted something a bit lighter to play through and this is exactly what I was looking for. Video Review: https://youtu.be/0snaz5d-j5A I would recommend this game but it isn't mandatory that you play it, but if you do you will likely enjoy the time you have with it.

I beat this in about an hour and what kept me going was the sound track mostly. I had fun and for 3 bucks I think it was pretty worth the price. People call it wonderboy but I keep getting vibes of pre-transformation powers kirby or anything game boy color related. I feel like it'd be perfect with a lcd grid over it.

Good.

Deeply faithful to games of the 8-bit era. If this existed back in the 80's, it would be looked at with great fondness today. It's got that warm kind of feeling to it. The colorful stages, the disarming main character, the cute enemies. It hits all those notes that make this feel like something nostalgic, even though it's new. It definitely earned the Master System vibes it was going for.

Cute characters and nice colorful pixel art but they can’t hide the fact that the gameplay is overly repetitive, and often feels deliberately frustrating because enemy placement is almost always hostile in a way that is designed to interrupt me. I can seldom make a smooth jump across a gap or onto a platform without an enemy suddenly appearing or dashing at me the moment I press the jump button. I completed the game in less than an hour, but the experience was never enjoyable because I constantly had to stop, lure, kill, wait, and repeat. Each area includes 3 stages, the first 2 are so similar they really should be made into one, and you still need to pass through similar maps again to face the boss in the end. On top of that, the game lacks consistency, for example, the spiked ceiling in the lava area appears in one room, disappears in the next, and then shows up again later without adding anything. Besides, many areas feel too similar with nearly identical enemies. I pushed myself to keep going, the snowy mountain level feels a bit better with at least strong wind that slows movement, but the rest are nothing fresh. The boss fights are disappointing. Aside from the final boss, the others are merely oversized versions of regular enemies with long health bars. Their attack patterns are simplistic, making the gameplay tedious and boring. By the end the game left me with an impression that the developers know how to create nice visuals, but not how to design a good gameplay. [u] [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/43342176-Why-Not-Games/#browse] My curator page[/url][/u]