Derelict Star

The movement mechanics are really interesting and are introduced or suggested pretty naturally throughout the world. The sense of discovery when realizing some new movement trick is fun, then applying it to bypass some obstacle you got stumped by earlier is even better. Even in the later parts of the game I was still discovering new things. Really impressive depth and variety to the movement. I really liked the world design and sense of exploration trying to find new areas. Different regions emphasize different aspects of the controls and gameplay in neat ways. I had been worried the game might be too difficult or finnicky to make any progress after seeing a little bit of the gameplay, but it ended up being pretty approachable. Don't get me wrong: the game is difficult. There's just a reasonable difficulty curve and the hardest challenges are mostly optional. There's also enough checkpoints so you don't need to redo too many rooms or game segments. I can't overstate how much I liked this one, it's just great overall.

Amazing game. It's everything I want in a platformer and more. Very strong sense of exploration and discovery, and the platforming challenges are consistently inventive. Beating the game is really not that hard, but there's tons of hard optional stuff for the people who want it.

Great platformer! Overall level design is great and very few of the main story items require a lot of precision. You can spend a lot of time thinking about what you are going to do, rather than dying 100 times trying to do it. Although there are plenty of hard collectibles if you like big challenges too. Also there's lots of checkpoints, so it's game where it's really easy to put it down and pick it back up for short or long play sessions. Music is just OK (mostly in that many areas are silent). There's some issues with the abrupt screen transitions in some areas. A very few gimmicks are just unfun (no-real-checkpoint zone for one). Overall very glad I bought the game! I came here to buy it from play "Control the Body" on itch.io because I was so impressed with the dev's level design.

this game is ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up oh my god

Derelict Star is a fascinating, great game that I think might be too hard. I have a relatively high threshold for punishing precision platformers, but even by my own standards (and with all due respect to the dev for including ample assist options), there are sections in this game that feel tuned for an almost mythical skill level. It's not even the exacting nature of the level design (which is absolutely a factor) so much as the lengthy runbacks if you fail. And no, it isn't purely relegated to the "optional" content because a number of the power cells (the mandatory progression items) involve long, extraordinarily hard platforming gauntlets coupled with obscurity. As with any difficulty-related claims, it'll be controversial for me to say it... but I think the checkpoint assist mod ought to be part of the game. Or the game just needs more checkpoints at times. I'm also not a big fan of the map: never felt like I had a good handle on the scale of it, and once I got enough cells to beat the game, I was too intimidated to venture farther out to collect the remainder given how confusing it is. The music--as good as it is--also feels a bit lacking and repetitive. Here's the thin…

There are a few sections in this game that have grueling difficulty where you'll need to perform dozens of incredibly precise jumps without any checkpoints. Sometimes it would make me want to punch a hole through my monitor, but it felt like I made meaningful progress in each attempt. The pixel-perfect controls and the momentum indicators give you everything you need to do any kind of jump very consistently once you figure it out. Until the very end, I was learning new tricks or nuances of the movement. When I went back to sections I gave up on, I got them in only a few tries with that better understanding of the movement. The game, as far as I could tell, never tries to teach you these mechanics intentionally. Most of the time I stumbled into them by accident while trying out something completely different. That realization of all the new routes I had access to kept happening over, and over again, despite the simple controls. This has to be one of the best games I've played in a long time.