Tag: platformer
Tricky, blobby platformer The True Slime King stands out in a crowded field
Maybe it’s because I’ve been bouncing between a lot of weighty games lately, but I’ve found a great diversion in The True Slime King, a simple three button platformer that recently left early access.
Speaking pedantically, this isn’t “as simple as it gets”, but you’ll get what I mean if I describe it that way anyway. You move and jump, dodging spikes and lasers and ISO 13370 compliant death pits, and ideally collecting all the hard to reach thingies along the way. These are far from my favourite genre, but I’ve played enough to realise I’m partial to a good one, and this is a great one.
Studio Ghibli’s Spirited Away has been a “guiding star” for gorgeous platformer Planet Of Lana
Wishfully’s upcoming cinematic platformer Planet Of Lana turned eyes and heads when it was first announced at E3 2021, and the comparison we instantly settled upon was “like Ori meets Inside”. At a recent ID@Xbox showcase we attended last week, creative director and Wishfully co-founder Adam Stjärnljus acknowledged that Playdead connection, saying that both Limbo and Inside “had a huge impact on me”. But he also said Studio Ghibli’s animated film Spirited Away was another key influence, which, yep, that definitely tracks.
“I was very inspired by Studio Ghibli films, and especially the film Spirited Away,” Stjärnljus told us. “That’s been kind of like a guiding star from the beginning in terms of tonality with this serious, emotional story, but [also] still, like, a fun quirkiness to it, and really this sense of exploring another world, which we really want.”
This adorable, Wind Waker-inspired platformer casts you as a friendly delivery witch
Explore a vast industrial hulk with your trusty climbing axes in this eerie first person platformer
Preposterous platformer Pizza Tower already getting cheaper on Steam
I’m struggling to find the words for an intro that do Steam’s newest platformer, the erratic and energetic Pizza Tower, justice. It’s a platform game that immediately a-salts the senses with a bopping soundtrack, bright visuals, an average Italian man fighting an assortment of enemies, and mushrooms – but it’s about as far from the overall-wearing plumber as you can get, and it’s already shot up to the top of my must-play list.
MORE FROM PCGAMESN: best indie games, best platform games, Pizza Tower on Steam
Best Platformer 2022: Neon White
Cozy Platformer Mail Time Gets New Trailer, PlayStation Versions Coming
As part of the Wholesome Snack stream, 3D-platformer Mail Time got a new trailer and an announcement that it would be coming to PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 in April 2023, alongside the previously announced PC and Nintendo Switch versions.
In Mail Time, you play as a little mushroom-wearing mail carrier, delivering packages and letters to the sleepy towns and homes of a forest world called Grumblewood Grove. You can leap from branches, use envelopes to glide, and jump on mushrooms to reach unseen heights. The forest is populated by various critters, including a capybara hiding in a barrel, a scheming crime-doing rat, and a peckish hamster. The trailer shows off a never-before-seen area: an enormous leftover picnic.
Mail Time is from 23-year-old solo developer Kela Van Der Deijl. Mail Time pulls from the platformers of the Nintendo 64 area like Mario 64 and Banjo Kazooie. It offers large levels with a multitude of tasks to do and items to collect, albeit with a hand-drawn aesthetic and a eye towards a cozy lived-in atmosphere. The unnamed mail carrier is fully customizable from head to toe, with over 46,000 potential combinations between hair color, skin tone, and clothing. You can also choose the mail career’s pronouns.
Pepper Grinder is a fab-looking pixel platformer about drilling and grappling
I’ve been eagerly anticipating Pepper Grinder since I saw a series of tweets with GIFs several years ago. It’s a pixel platformer in which the protagonist, Pepper, has a drill which she uses to plow through scenery, and a grappling hook for all the moments when she’s not underground. It’s now been officially announced with Devolver as publisher and there’s a reveal trailer below.
Lunistice is a Saturn-inspired indie platformer with Sonic speed, out now
Lunistice is a 3D platformer inspired by the PSX/Sega Saturn era, but its high-speed movement reminds me of Sonic’s 3D adventures, in a good way. Out today on PC and Switch, it was originally developed by solo dev A Grumpy Fox as a small 30-day project, but it quickly ballooned into something larger. It’s now been over a year since A Grumpy Fox first started work on the game, but I think you can agree from the announcement trailer below, it’s been time well spent.