Lost Resolve

This is gonna be a long review. I will be dividing it in 7 catagories. I won't talk about the story, but I will go into detail about the gameplay and (without spoiling) the bosses. The conclusion serves as a tldr. [h2]The gameplay's appeal[/h2] The game's controls takes heavy inspiration from celeste, though they still have their own identity. It even has momentum depending on what abilities you choose to have. You would expect the level design to take inspiration from celeste too, but it doesn't. Celeste's level design has you retrying a single difficult room over and over again until you finally overcome it, however, this game's challenge doesn't come from the level design itself, but the process of mastering it and getting that S rank, which the players have to actually earn instead of it just being given away, so if you're unwilling to speedrun the game, this may not be your cup of tea. I think this game's levels are easy enough to be accessible to those that are bad at platformers. Story isn't skippable though, but you can just mash through them; it's not a big deal. [h2]Poor Communication?[/h2] I didn't know that the game had abilities until after I finished half of the s…

The movement system feels versatile. But the levels really need some enemies, or something that chases you to make you feel more in the zone. With no guys around, feels just like a Unity movement demo. Also, the Pumpkin guy surprises, as the game did not teach how to fight enemies, so I just dies couple times before understood you have to dash it between the chain blades. Also, really sucks that if you fall of the ledge on the boss spawn point, you have to to climb the whole mountain up each try.

good game for a solo dev for 2 dollars kinda laggy though on my pc

Liked: - Simple but compelling story - Satisfying core movement - Simple mechanics conceal a lot of depth - Optional challenges (hidden items and level times) encourage mastery - Levels are fairly readable despite high speeds - Obstacles are used well - introduced well, not overused Disliked: - Game is short without going for full completion - Minor UX nitpicks: wall jump and air dash are the same button, cannot auto restart level on death

I liked the movement, music, and story. The free DLC is tough but fun.

Got to know this indie game from a dev vlog on YouTube, it's a fast paced high skill ceiling 2D platformer. If you're like me, not really into mastering controls and speedrunning things, you'll probably want to skip this one. Nonetheless, it does have controller support and feels responsive, the animations are clean, It's a solid first indie release. Congrats, Swinkly!