KUNAI flips weapon progression systems on their head. You start with nothing but a katana, which is already the most powerful weapon in the game (and you can make it stronger), letting you heal yourself by attacking with it. Then it gives you a RIGHT kunai (grappling hook), making you go "oooh so its like Twilight Princess with the double clawshots" and then not 5 seconds later you find the LEFT kunai and you go "ooohh...?". From there on, its pretty standard, but still some surprising twists: you get throwing stars, but they don't do damage! By the time you get the BIG EXPLODY GUN, you've probably mastered every other weapon and know when its best to use the weaker guys and when to pull out the big guns. The only things I don't like about the weapons is that their charged attack upgrades are too slow to use when you'd need them most, and the best one (the one for the katana) trades off with health, so you will probably quickly stop using it. Also, the katana upgrades cost a shit ton. I think that's because they are meant to be a last resort, but even then, where do you make that much money?

Shockingly this game has absolutely no transport/teleport/quick travel mechanic. It's like a perfect case example of how sorely needed quick travel is in action platformers (idk if you can truly call this a metroidvania), because you will FEEL IT when you need to backtrack, and it almost seems like this game wants you to backtrack. Sometimes it's almost ridiculous, with one dungeon requiring you to walk across its entire length to go through a door you just flipped open, and then do the same thing but in reverse. It sucks and also demotivated me from going back to previous areas to find all the hidden chests.

Speaking of hidden chests... This game very much falls prey to the "invisible wall with a room behind it" torture that is a staple of metroidvanias now, I guess. Like collecting or finding hidden stuff? Settle in, because you are going to be rubbing against EVERY WALL to make sure you don't miss anything cool. Blegh, please no more.

The boss fights actually featured some great variety, which confirms this isn't a metroidvania. But... Zensei... Again, it's like a case study in why some bosses need checkpoints, or just like, a way to not have to redo the entire fight because the last section is inexplicably much harder than the rest. I was so fed up with Zensei by the time I beat him, it was not at all a "YES! I DID IT!" it was a "the pain is over, and now i can begin healing".

The music is sick, Quantum Forest made me just want to spend more time there. However, I was pretty surprised to find the Final Boss music was... the same as every other boss. And the credits music... was the boss music again. I think. Or maybe it was the main menu music? Anyways, the extremely sudden credits roll with the reused track made me feel like I was giving too long of a speech at the Oscars. Like, "ok ok you did it, nice job, hurry up and get outta here".

Mixed feelings across the board. Definitely a fun time, but very much having some sore spots of major frustration.

It's a nice errand running game with very simple mechanics, so much so that there is not a single word used in the game itself. It also is very short, taking me 3 hours to do complete the main objectives plus have time to do everything I wanted to, which probably covered about 75% of the in-game achievements. For the current price of $25, I wouldn't really recommend it simply because it's just a bad value, but it was still a pleasant little experience (and hugging your plant around the island is very sweet and good)

A remarkably balanced, well paced, and replayable card game. God it feels so good to build a strategy out of all of the weird relics and cards you end up with through the run. I don't think I've replayed what is essentially the same game this many times and never once felt bored. I think StS hit the sweet spot in run length and difficulty curve. It's so easy to pick it up, give the spire another shot, and put it down whether it's a victory or a loss. And somehow out of dozens of failed attempts with what seemed like miraculously perfect decks, I never felt demotivated starting back at square 1.

If you know what I mean when I say 2D Infinifactory Sokoban, you should FOR REAL check this out.

If you don't, I'm talkin about a freaking box pushing optimization puzzle game where every level is a blank slate: build whatever you want! The only limit is the instruction count and the bot count.

This game's limits are so well constrained, and it's well suited to any sort of puzzle solver: slow but sure, perfectionist, puzzle god desiring a challenge, speedrunner, people who just like making a cool thing do a thing correctly.

The best part of this game is seeing your sokobots in action after meticulously winding them up, making sure they don't bump into each other or waste any steps, that they pause when they need to and step when it's time, and have that reach a beautiful loop.

It's a shame that not many people have checked this out yet. Although I haven't hardly played past the first world, I'm kinda slow at the puzzles so I've put in tons of time and every session has been puzzle zen.

What do I say about a game that had one horrible element among fantastic ones?

I love what this game is. I love that you need pencil and paper and trial and error to solve its puzzles, I love how the puzzles chained into elaborate level-spanning hidden paths. 4/5 of the worlds were great, and I had such joy with every AHA! moment.

Something went horribly wrong in hexagon, the icy level world. The maze puzzle? Freaking hard, but good fun, loved it. Everything about the codes though, I don't understand. I still don't understand. I actually brute forced my way through every single puzzle involving the passwords in that area. I feel caveman level stupid but it just was not coming to me and I was desperate for progress and to see the game through. I still haven't looked up what the deal was with it. Was it obvious and I'm stupid? Was it convoluted and I'm justified? Idk man. It just felt bad.

Otherwise, incredible first person puzzler. The style was fresh, the wordlessness was calming, the elaborate secrets were enthralling.

Netflix games: a puddle of idle games and locked up older titles... that's what it was, until Poinpy walked into town.

GOD Poinpy is good fun. I played Downwell and knew the developer had the goods but literally making Upwell as a cute fruit collection mobile game with music from Calum Bowen was unexpectedly wonderful. The difficulty is just right, it allows plenty of room for assistance if needed, it has a proper endgoal and ending, and then there's even a puzzle mode and high score mode. It has everything, day 1.

My only issue with it was the sometimes frustrating hit detection. If you get a jump whose zenith overlaps with a platform, you're basically doomed to land on it before you can jump again. And so many times, I slammed into the ground 1 centimeter from an enemy instead of bouncing off of it, and I just felt like: come on, poinpy. Give me a break kid.

Lovely happy game. Play it to the end.

Very oddly... I kinda loved my time with this game, despite it being not very good. I think the base concept - freeform tower defense reliable on connected pipes - that I can get into.

But ah, 90% of the time nothing is attacking you, and when something is, it doesn't do damage, and it can be defeated in moments with a sentry.

And there are these ranges for each item, meaning you have to carefully plan where to build your pipelines around the obstacles on the stage and around YOUR OWN obstacles - that was unexpected, and clever, and fun - all of this sets up a great puzzley tower defense.

But you can't see the range of anything until you place it down, and at that point the range is what it is and you have to work around that, AH!

I actually think I liked the minimalism of starting with all 5 buildings available to build if you have the cash, but I wonder if with SOME way to upgrade your stuff, if it would've been a bit more fun.

Anyways, I ended up building a couple mines then spent about 10 minutes building ~84 labs to accumulate salt production faster and faster and capped the salt meter at literally the last second and was absolutely pumped and now I can't help but say: this was a lot of fun.

This one is pretty frickin stellar man. I've never seen a triangular grid used like the one in this game, and although it took some time to win me over with the mechanics of the game, by the end I was wishing for more. I still think there should have been a little better guiding at first, because at least for me, I was lost on how the mechanics worked for longer than I expected. When I went around to clean up some secrets I missed, I really got in the groove. Plus, hidden secrets in a little grid based game? Leading to lore? So cool.

Soundtrack is absolutely killlllller too

Hmm... I think I liked it! Very unusual sort of zach-like gameplay, where you have instructions, but they are semi-randomized, and you still get to choose how to use them and in what order each turn. That was hard enough to explain succinctly, figuring it out had my brain frying a bit!

This one has the richest story of the bundle (so far, haven't played WADTB and Triga), and also, surprisingly, multiple endings depending on how you choose to tend the gardens. The creators definitely had a lot to say and experiment with, and I could feel the love.