Intense layers of audiovisual crunch and stylistic eccentricities, along with a killer elevator pitch concept, were more than enough to pull me in, but the core game felt to simplistic to really hold my attention for the short runtime.

Children of the Sun is not subtle about its influences (as if it's subtle about anything else) and as a result I felt called to this game because those sources were instantly recognizable to me. For example, the appearance of the "NMH Motel" in the game was all the confirmation I needed to know that me and the developer were going to be speaking the same language.

However, for as much as I dig the aesthetic and the grunge, Children of the Sun holds itself back from giving me the kind of gory unrestrained fun of the Devolver titles that it draws from.

The big issue: is this a puzzle game? The answer is no but the game contradicts itself on this point. For instance, you're given unlimited time and no pressure to mark your kills, but a lot of levels have targets hidden from view that you must find in situ, but then those targets stay marked once you do find them so you can plan on a failed attempt. No puzzle game should make you take failed attempts to gather information, but information in this game is so valuable because the mechanics demand you have an overarching plan. When my planning is thorough, the execution feels tedious, when I try to improvise I'm punished for a lack of planning.

This conflict actually plays out in a couple of other Devolver titles, incidentally. Take Hotline Miami, a great game but anyone would admit that the hardest levels are a bit tedious, that game really sings when you're able to play by reacting to the chaos correctly rather than going through your preset motions. An even better example is Ape Out, that game randomizes the levels to force you to only play reactively, to find a path through the chaos. It's jazz.

A cymbal crashes when I get a kill in this game, same as in Ape Out, but I still don't feel the beat.

Brief, light, pleasant, Botany Manor has a fantastic set up and delivers on that premise but lacks any ambition to go beyond and become more than the sum of its parts.

Being given a book of blank pages and a gorgeous mansion to explore is intensely charming. Each page represents a flower with unique conditions for blossoming, which you're tasked with first deducing and then recreating within the grounds of the manor.

The puzzles have an escape room feel, key information is scattered around in notes and pages that you must cross reference until you puzzle out what your little sprout needs to grow. These puzzles are all delightful, each flower is fickle in its own whimsical way, but the logic is rooted in real principles of botany to help guide your intuition. Light, soil, temperature and even sound are the lingua franca of the floral world.

There's a feature to place relevant clues on a flower's page, which then "lock in" once you have the full set; it's usefulness is middling, you can't view information remotely and the puzzles don't have much overlap anyway. This feels like a half-hearted gesture at Return of the Obra Dinn's genius information managing system.

As is typical for this type of silent first person indie game the story and background must be inferred rather than shown directly. This is done through notes and objects that have varying degrees of subtlety regarding the themes of the game. This is where the game falters for me, not that I dislike the themes or feel that they're not important or emotional, but rather that the game is lacking a watershed moment that ties gameplay and narrative together as a cohesive Experience.

That said, ultimately it's a short enjoyable game that I didn't regret my time playing, so maybe you won't either.

This game brought me back to the old days of flash games, though the polish here is obviously at a much higher level. This game has great 'flow' occasionally broken up by alternate mechanics that are fun but a little less so than the core, but help each level feel unique.

The bosses are unfortunately the lowlight, being difficult and repetitive is not a good combination.

I gotta mention the soundtrack, it really stood out to me and brought the energy of the whole game up.