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…

This is a stealth roguelike platformer with base building and metaprogression, featuring permadeath for your "operatives" similar to Watch Dogs: Legion on its hardest difficulty, the ability to use a Fulton extraction system like in Metal Gear Solid, and plenty of other mechanics besides. It's hard to think of another game that combines all of these ideas into such a cohesive package. There are a few rough edges in the controls and UI/UX, but you get used to them quickly. Highly recommended.

this is actually really fun with friends. it's fun without them too, just much more with friends.

Great game can fully recommend it if you are into fun run and gun gameplay. The only two issues I encountered was having no sound on pc but it worked on just fine on laptop for whatever reason and an ingame bug I encountered when fleeing and jumping on someone's head in a tight space which made me abadon that employee but that was just slightly annoying not more otherwise polished as heck loved it. Even 100%ing it was a blast 😊 Also shoutout to Zombey for showing it!

now that i have 100% completed the game out of spite, i can provide an honest review, which must begin with the fact that new game+ is absolute bullcrap. why must i collect everything again with no changes to the game whatsoever, aside from the irritating rent and deadlines on all the same hats? what's the point? literally had to do this all over again because of a single achievement i needed connected to the final boss, it was nothing but annoying. that being said, it is an enjoyable little game that can be quite unforgiving at times, depending on luck and your own degree of spatial awareness. initially, the game feels quite difficult due to all the quirks, but it quickly equips you with the necessary tools to mitigate those difficulties. the controls are extremely simple, mobile-game level simple, and the graphics are too, yet this does't diminish the overall experience. it offers good value for the price, and if you enjoy slightly challenging roguelike platformers, you can easily spend a few evenings immersed in this game and have a fun time.

what can I say? It's an underappreciated gem. Your recruits are as inept as the entire operation, and their negative traits you're forced to work with/around are hilarious. Gameplay is exactly what it wants to be, and feels challenging but never frustrating. Completionists will also find plenty left to do after the main story ends, but I'm not of that persuasion.