The Reflection (2022)

Interesting first attempt at making a game. Takes a variety of ideas that all function but never comes together well through the game's short length, in addition to other problems. You start with a side view of your character and the level that makes it look like a platformer before quickly having to switch to a first person mode where you have a gun to fight enemies and the ability to teleport (it says hook to but you just appear next to it) to nearby orbs in the environment. Running into the orbs or entering a layer of water in the stage puts you into an inverted version of the stage that can allow you to reach new platforms or to fight enemies that were formerly covered by force fields. New elements are added in later levels like platforms that rotate whenever you jump, traps, or needing to find jewels that spawn in enemies. Most of the game is presented and has the length of a tutorial where you have large text explaining how things work to you and by the time you are through the simplest first five levels you are halfway through the game in under 10 minutes. Though simplistic shooting could be fairly satisfying if enemies were placed in more interesting locations and made be…

The Reflection is a 3D rendered Unreal Engine 2D retro platformer with the old and overdone "mirror" gimmick (falling through the water switches you to an inverted plane of the level, ho hum). Completing levels involves using this mechanic to find the correct platformer path to the level end. That's all there is to it. From a technical perspective, the game doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard. The game features lazy low-polygon minimalist greyscale assets, making this look like a barely functional 3D game from the 1990s. It's unclear why the developers weren't able to arrange high quality, high polygon count contemporary assets for the game, and also irrelevant... what matters is that this looks bad as a result of their decisions, a compromise PC gamers shouldn't have to put up with. The controls can't be customised, which will be an annoyance for many, but it can also render the game unplayable for differently-abled gamers. The controls and game handling are notably very floaty and unsmooth here. Platformer hitboxing isn't quite right so if you're close to getting the platform you can "bump" onto it... it's difficult to plan jumps…

almost interesting idea for game but it's pretty poorly made and falls flat in many ways that i'm not gonna go in to too much detail here. sorry

The Reflection, developed and published by BatYaggy, is a concept-driven indie platformer that builds its entire identity around a single, intriguing mechanic: the existence of a mirrored world that the player can freely traverse. Rather than relying on complex systems or a layered narrative, the game focuses on how this dual-world interaction reshapes movement, puzzle-solving, and combat. It feels less like a traditional platformer and more like an experiment in spatial design, where understanding the relationship between two perspectives becomes the key to progression. The central mechanic revolves around shifting between the normal world and its inverted reflection, typically accessed through reflective surfaces such as water. This mirrored dimension is not just a visual effect—it is fully interactive, with terrain, enemies, and obstacles existing in both states. What is solid ground in one dimension may become a ceiling or an unreachable surface in the other, forcing players to constantly rethink their position and approach. This creates moments where the solution to a problem lies not in moving forward, but in flipping perspective entirely. The mechanic is intuitive in concep…