Star Boy

This is, by far, the most ♥♥♥♥♥♥ game of all time. -1000/10, never buy unless you love glitches and want to get eye cancer.

The setup is supposedly about an evil sorceress named Refinnej unleashing minions across space and time, with Starboy and the Star Warriors stepping up to save the day. Sounds cheesy but promising, right? The problem is, after playing, I still have no idea what this game is even supposed to be. The description on the store page gave me more clarity than the actual gameplay. That’s the first red flag. [h2] GOOD [/h2] [list] [*][b] Enemy Design Shows Some Potential [/b] Not everything here is a disaster. Some of the enemy sprites are decently drawn, and there are tiny glimpses of effort in a handful of animations. Unfortunately, that’s about as far as the compliments go. [/list] [h2] BAD [/h2] [list] [*][b] Graphics That Fail to Impress [/b] Yes, the developer claims this was drawn frame-by-frame over two years. That sounds impressive on paper, but the end product doesn’t show polish or craftsmanship. Other indie hand-drawn games (*Nepenthe, Hero Boy, Escape Doodleland*) actually feel alive. *Star Boy* looks rushed, stiff, and uninspired. The characters and levels are bland, flat, and uninteresting, like placeholders from a draft that should’ve never made it to release. To be brutally honest, I’ve seen student projects or even 5-year-olds with crayons (see *Gunman Taco Truck*) produce more charm and coherence. [*][b] Gameplay Repetition [/b] The store page tries to sell this as a love letter to ‘90s beat ’em ups. The truth? The only nostalgia it stirs is reminding me how much better those classics actually were. The gameplay is repetitive to the point of being exhausting, levels recycle endlessly, and enemies quickly go from mildly amusing to sheer annoyance. If you remember *Bucky O’Hare Arcade*, imagine that but stripped of energy, pacing, and fun. [*][b] Co-Op Without Controller Support [/b] This is inexcusable. A beat ’em up that advertises co-op but doesn’t support controllers is baffling. Nobody is dragging friends over for a beat ’em up on one keyboard. WASD + Spacebar + F “works fine” for one person at best, but there’s no excuse for not implementing proper multiplayer input. This reeks of oversight and laziness. [*][b] Lack of Direction and Quality Control [/b] The developer clearly put years into this, but without outside feedback or real playtesting, the game feels like it exists in a vacuum. No one stepped in to say “this isn’t fun” or “this design doesn’t work,” and it shows. Instead of iterating and improving, the game feels like it leapt from concept to release without the necessary refinement of early access. [/list] [h2] CONCLUSION [/h2] *Star Boy* is a product of ambition without execution. The idea of blending hand-drawn art with retro beat ’em up nostalgia had promise, but what we got was a confused, repetitive, and poorly structured mess that doesn’t know its audience or its strengths. The lack of co-op support ruins one of the most crucial aspects of the genre, the “hand-drawn” visuals look amateur and inconsistent, and the gameplay loop becomes tedious within minutes. I’ve defended the developer before, saying he isn’t a scammer—just inexperienced and isolated. But at some point, you need to hear the hard truth: this game isn’t ready, and it never should’ve launched in this state. Early access would’ve been the proper route to gather feedback and fix the obvious flaws. As it stands, I cannot recommend *Star Boy*. If you do end up playing, leave your own review—but don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I really wanted to enjoy this game. Several people told me that this game was deeply inspired by Super Mario Bros. and also by Donkey Kong Country. Sadly, I see so resemblence to either franchise. The graphics could use a little work. Kind of look like a child made them (not being mean, it looks like some crayola marker drawing just check out the screens and you'll see I'm right). If I could suggest something to the developer, perhaps look to a similar game with a similar style (Kid Chameleon for instance, great game, very similar gameplay/style/aesthetic) for some art tips. The gameplay is very not fun (sorry, not trying to be mean but it's very violent and I don't even know if these animals that I'm shooting are evil or not, what's their story?). Let me point you towards some established evil villains for reference such as Dr. Robotnik's bad robots from the Sonic series (he's some sort of animal but I forget, I'll look it up later). They are established as evil but redeemable because when you harm them they turn into cute little animals. Look further towards (and I'm sorry to bring this up again) but Mario Bros. for example, the koopas and goombas are very angry. Anger = evil to put it plainly. Maybe add some angry faces in the next update? Maybe a weapon to justify the killing? In this political climate, no one likes a hero that shoots first (just look at Han Solo, they changed everything about that film). Music is great, but might I suggest perhaps upping the quality. In my experience YouTube has some great music you can download using youtube2mp3.com or similar services. The great thing about this is that no one will ever know. If they report you for musical theft, you can simply pitch shift the song and explain that it is a 'remix'. Just a thought. Finally, what is Star Boy's story? What's the lore? I feel confused and slightly angered because I would love to learn more about this wonderful horned man. He looks very similar and cool just like my favorite super hero Waluigi from Super Mario Bros. franchise. Perhaps look into the Mario Brothers franchise for some inspiration? These games have some similarities but also differences. I didn't mind spending $25 on this product but would love some DLC. Just a thought. Thank you for your time, looking forward to your reponse.

I...honestly have no idea what to say.... This game was so bad. Like...extremely bad.. I never write reviews, but after wasting 17 minutes of my life and $25 of my hard-earned money, I feel compelled to write a review. Here are my complaints: -First, the start menu/title screen was confusing. All I saw was a 'campaign' button at the bottom. No name of the game, no animations, just a weird graphic and a button, but I'll talk about the graphics/art later. -After clicking the button, you go to the character selection menu. There are four characters, but...you can't really select or deselect them. You can see the 'robot dragon eagle' but not the others. When you hover the mouse over the other three, you can only see Stargirl. What type of design choices were made to ensure that I legitimately was confused from 2 seconds of booting up the game? I ended up clicking everything because the indicators to show that they were marked or unmarked were designed so poorly. That ended up being a big BIG MISTAKE because when I booted up the game, all four characters appeared on the screen. I tried moving to the right only to realize that the giant monstrosity of a character known as the eagle dragon whatever wasn't going to let me continue, so I ended up just closing out of the game and starting it up again. -About the controls, it looked like the controls were typed up on a Word document, transformed into a PDF, and shoved into a game engine. The pictures and words were blurry, and the controls themselves made no sense. There is no logical way to play this with 4 people. I mean, sure, the buttons themselves don't overlap, but I have never seen any game use G-V-B-N for their movement controls. The actual attack buttons don't make sense either! Starboy uses F and Space, Stargirl uses U and O. Ok but like think about that. U and O are not close to each other. Now imagine if three people were playing as Starboy, Stargirl, and the robot dragon eagle, the buttons used are WASDFSpace, IJKLUO, GVBNTY. That's 18 keys on the keyboard for three people to share. The family fun game of twister is now available on steam for all to enjoy however somehow it was made more awkward to play! -Ok now it's time to review the actual game. When you first get into the game, you have no idea what you're doing. If you didn't read the controls like I did, you will struggle to move our character. Luckily, the default is Starboy, so if you've ever played any online game, WASD are the default movement keys. Continuing on, what is the actual goal of this game? It feels like a "get from one side of the screen to another" type of game, but it's definitely not clear. Each "level" feels the same as well. There are points to be obtained, but some levels don't have the point system. The only time the game was...passable as fun...was when Starboy was flying through the space. But again, I was soooo confused the whole time. -What is the story of this game? All I can tell is that knuckles, sonic, the silver surfer, and a disgrace to medieval folklore decided to take a nice walk through space and fight random npc's. Like what is the motivation for them to actually fight whatever the antagonist is? There's really no explanation or even a mention to whats going on. -Also, what were those transitions? I had no clue what I was doing or what I had to be collecting. I went to a new area, the enemies were still the same, and the weird flying scenes were confusing. Was there a boss? there was a large blue enemy, but I still "killed" it with ease? -The mechanics of this game, while it was simple, some levels had the characters automatically moving backwards. Also, in one level, I moved INSANELY FAST! This would be great if there was a power-up that let you do this, but nope! I just moved in completely random ways. Another mechanic that was confusing was the shooting mechanism. You can just spam the space bar and it will automatically deal damage to an enemy. You can also hold down the space button to deal damage. I'm not sure if this was supposed to happen. -Speaking about the enemies, what are they??? In the short amount of time I played this, I only encountered three enemies. A tardigrade-looking thing, a jellyfish, and a crab? I guess the developer was going for aquatic enemies? They also did nothing to the player. They only dealt damage if I directly touched them. Don't worry, if you go to a new level, your health comes back, and you may or may not even see your health bar. -Again, there is no way to end the game except from pressing the x on the corner. And there is also no way to get back to where you were in the game if you get out. I know this is an arcade-like game, but I did not want to play this more than 5 minutes. I kept going because I needed more info to write this review. -ART! Omg this is going to be a long section. The art of the characters is not unified. Starboy himself doesn't have clean lines. It looks like a 10-year-old drew it. The developer came up with the character when he was 10, but....one would hope an indie game developer would know already what is great art. The tardigrade enemy has this weird white border around it, but the jellyfish has a brown shadow? The other characters look like they were poorly cropped out of a picture. The lines aren't clean, the colors blended together, and you can see weird parts of a white, cropped border. The cat vomit I had to clean up off the floor this morning honestly looks like a masterpiece compared to the art of this game. -The colors of this game are......nauseating? I know there are a million colors possible to use, but that doesn't mean you have to use ALL OF Them. Want your game to look like you're on an LSD trip? Use all the colors in the most random places ever. Your eyes will perceive it as a vomit brown color and maybe cause you to produce your own vomit as well! -Let's talk about copyright issues. The music, at first, doesn't seem to fit the weird shooting game aesthetic. I kept thinking it sounded like a pop song, and then it hit me. It was a mediocre cover of Starboy by The Weekend. I'm not 100% well-versed in copyright laws in video games, but this was suspicious, Another instance was that weird flying scene but with a zoomed-in blurry clip of Sonic and Tails from maybe Sonic 2? This is a whole different game. I don't think the developer is allowed to do this. To the developer: I think you should take some classes on game design and game art. Also, consider lowering the price of this game. It's not a completed game and should not have the price of one

mmmmmmmm he really punches!