Coming from the minds of Klei Entertainment, who gave us the wonderful Don’t Starve games, I’m not sure how they could fumble the bag this hard when it comes to bringing everyone’s childhood fantasy of the floor is lava to life. Hot Lava is what you get when the powers that be decide we need another soulless platformer with half-baked concepts. You have grocery stores, arcades, schools, and houses to monkey-bar swing through, slide by, and jump on as you collect cards and finish races. I originally intended to 100% the game but before I got halfway through I realized I couldn’t. Conceptually the game does everything right, it’s when you get into the details that its mediocrity starts to become apparent.

For one thing, you’re restricted to choosing only one special jump ability at a time. Why? I cannot fathom why. Even with the jetpack and pogo stick levels this game is extremely short-lived in how much it will entertain you. This game needs about three times as many abilities as it has, because a jump and a swing just doesn’t cut it when you get past the intro world. The easiest one that trivializes a lot is probably the double jump, but they all have their niches. It doesn’t matter though because only one ability at a time for you mister. Can’t be getting too crazy with it. It’s like the lay-up was right there for them. Just add a little more. They didn’t even change the worlds themselves to include new platforming challenges. The settings change yet the set pieces remain the same, making it feel real samey after a too-short time.

This is another one of those customize your character and earn little trinkets kind of game. A choice I question when again, this game does little to refine platforming past the year 2000. I legitimately wonder how anyone could get sucked into this game to be invested enough to try to complete their passes. If I were a little kid again I think I would just prefer to stick to real life fantasies. There might not be a double jump in real life, but I can promise you there’s so much more challenge and excitement there than this game could ever bring. Hopefully Hot Lava doesn’t stop us from one day getting a real contender for best new platformer using the novel concept it’s based on. I know I’m being harsher than it deserves, it’s just this game is almost comically boring and safe.

i played this game back when it was still in closed beta so this review will be a bit biased towards it, but with how many updates the game has had up to this point and how active the devs are to update it to fix it or to release new content, the game has gotten to a point where i can safely say it's fantastic. it has good difficulty progression between the stages within the level areas, plenty of collectibles to run around and get if you've already mastered getting the stars in the levels normally, and it has complete workshop support, with some workshop levels being ported into the game as full, official levels. i would originally give this game a 4.5/5 if it only had characters with the base boost mechanic, but at the time of writing this review they are adding more characters with new abilities for even more level replayability. i know the 'parkour' type of game won't be for everyone, but for what it is, absolutely fantastic

The visual style of this game hurts the gameplay it’s going for. It’s no surprise that the community made levels are much plainer and easier to read from the get-go, as the normal game puts too much investment in realism in what should have been based off comic book aesthetics. Not only does to clash visually, but it makes maneuvering the courses awkward at times. It gets especially harder to interpret the intended path in some later levels, though one could argue plotting out the course for the most speed is part of the fun of it.

There’s some discontentment with some mechanics (like poles), but otherwise there’s a decent speed running/bhopping concept here that feels satisfying to play. There’s tech to learn and competitive incentives between friends and strangers to keep you going.

Hot Lava is a fun movement/parkour game that follows a good formula throughout the game. You spend most of your time going through different areas and bunny-hopping around the platforms. One of the best parts about this game is how fluid the game can get when your hops just start to flow and your speed picks up. This can be great and a lot of fun however a lot of the time these moments are cut short by other obstacles that you need to climb or swing on that just kill your momentum. Other times it’s just the level design that keeps you in areas that are too cramped and just don’t allow you to go fast without knowing the map layout. It’s times like these that make Hot Lava a game that’s just not all that fun. I do, however, feel that the good outweighs the bad and for the most part, Hot Lava was an enjoyable experience to play.