Mr. Sun's Hatbox

Right, so here's a game about a delivery man who loses a hat. That's it. That's the inciting incident. Somewhere a writer pitched "what if FedEx, but you can die," got a development budget, and nobody in the room stood up and left. Bold. Let's be fair, because I'm nothing if not fair. It is, technically, functional art - and I want to stress the functional part, because nobody could accuse it of being pretty. It's ugly. Charmingly ugly, sure, ugly with a personality, the way a pug is ugly and somehow people still buy them. But the art does its job, which is more than I can say for most of the game. It plays like Spelunky's younger cousin who watched Spelunky do everything first and then did it slightly worse, which, frankly, is most of us. And there's stuff to like, if you squint. Hats are your passive skills, and there are loads of them - so many hats you'll feel like you're managing a small millinery rather than a platformer. Loads of items too. Real player choice, the whole risk/reward dance, permadeath for your gloriously expendable little employees, who you'll grow to love roughly as much as you love a temp's name you've already forgotten. There's even base-building, a rogue…

Great unique fun! Artwork and gameplay are great! Lots of upgrades and variety! One more mission!

The "story" can be completed in like 4-5 hours as all you need is 5 crowns and then the final stage. The gameplay is super super fun though and the varying skills and level difficulties keep things interesting... Where the game falls off is newgame+ onward. After you complete the final stage on a regular save, it locks you out and forces you to accept a new game +. So what is newgame+, just makes things harder right??? For some unholy reason they thought that there should be a rent-based system where you have to pay gold every week or it resets your entire progress for the 7 in-game days. Additionally, there are also crown timers so you can't even play at your own pace anymore. Everything feels extremely rushed and just became very unfun.

Fun game. Tight gameplay. Well crafted game loop going between your base and missions. This game turned out to be nothing like I thought it would be from the screenshots. It's probably better than I imagined. It's challenging so expect to die a lot. Even if you die before you complete the level there's plenty of opportunity to send resources back to home base. They also let you choose between different difficulty rated levels with rewards increasing for riskier runs. One important note; it's NOT a metroidvania. There's no over arching map. It's a 2D platformer with a huge variety of guns, weapons and armor. It's a rougelike with base building mechanics. 10/10

The game feels bit like Spelunky, but with a somewhat worse gameplay with a plethora of hats and items to swap. Hats are essentially passive skills. +Aesthetics, functional art +Player choice +Risk/reward -> perma death for your very expendable characters +Base building as a roguelite progression / metagame ---UX/UI is messy - things get on each other and the core loop of capturing, picking up, swapping gear etc is completely slowed down with things stacking on top of each other forcing slow gear swap -The game just didn't keep me hooked at all. It felt like a chore to play. = Neutral review, but since I wouldn't recommend such for myself, I wouldn't recommend it to you either.

it's a ragebait and so fun