I wanted to like this game so badly. Unfortunately, it's pretty much shovelware and I got got good. Read more if you want to watch me dissect this thing like it's an actual game experience I'm disappointed in instead of just screaming SCAM like anyone sane.
1) I hope nobody actually paid full price for this. Unlikely, but if you somehow did anyway, I can't even feel bad for you. Lmao loser. Jokes aside,
2) as I said, it's shovelware. Barely even worth the <2€ discount price it seems to always be at. I'm sorry. At first glance it's a cute, delightful game with a cosy premise, nice vibes and chippy background music. You might think the initial price is strange, as this looks like a ~1 hour game MAX, but you add it to your cart anyway. For the funsies, one might say. After a few weeks or months of you having it around, you randomly find it in your library. You think it's cute-looking. You boot it up.
Unfortunately, your delight will end the moment you actually start playing.
Immediately, you will notice upon completing the first stage that there is no next level button, (which there IS, by the way, it's the Enter key,) with the only "options" showing up on screen being the same as the death screen's: R to restart, Esc to exit. Fellas, the Dev(s?) didn't even bother coding in a Level Complete screen. You can figure out how to progress, sure, but I still would have liked not abuse-clicking the level select for the first 5 levels thinking I couldn't.
Another gripe I have with the game is the gameplay itself. Now, I don't know how you can mess up a platformer of this miniscule capacity, but they did it. Good job.
-> Firstly, the platforms themselves... you can phase through them. As in, both the bottom line AND the top line of each function as platforms you can stand on. What the hell? At first I thought it was a bug, but it soon became apparent that it is, indeed, a feature. If this "bug" didn't exist, you straight up could not complete a single level past, idk, 5 or so. Further apparent by the fact that sometimes, the cursor you need to collect will spawn INSIDE the platform. For some reason, instead of thinking about level design at all and fixing such a miniscule problem, the Devs decided to just remove their brains and keep it up. Okay. At least it's original, I suppose. Sh*tting on the mere idea of a "platformer", that is.
-> Secondly: the enemies. Yeah, they make no sense. And I'm not talking about them not making sense in-game (though I'm unsure what deadly lasers or cannons have to do with being a pixelated cat... you have to have *some* sort of thing that kills you, I get it, it's a platformer). The way they work is abysmal. You WILL be shot dead thrice in a row the moment you respawn. There's really no feel-good "sync-up" between each one, no real rhythm between the attacks"". At some point you just kind of start blindly thrusting yourself into the vague way of the cursor in hopes that you get to it before the lasers get to you. Thank f^ck you don't lose any progress everytime you croak. I'd rage-quit. (At least I only had to suffer through half the game. Steam automatically awarded me the "complete the game" achievement like, 10 minutes in. Cool, I guess?)
-> Lastly, and this really IS a nitpick, I haaate that I actually really like this thing's premise. A digital cat chasing a digital cursor across program windows; come on! Had this idea been in better hands, I would now have a 4-10€ cosy platformer from another dev in my library that is worth every penny. Shame.
(+!) Don't be fooled by the pricing tactic - seems all of Galactic Geckon's titles rely on you buying them not because you care, or because they are particularly good, but because "oh why not, it's on a great sale anyway". Good way to drive up interest & be on the front page, sure, but a bad look overall. I can't speak for their other games, of course, as I only own this one (hell, they might be absolutely amazing for all I care), but this experience was plenty enough for me NOT to go back and get a single other game.
**TL;DR**: Yeaaah... it's a no from me, dawg. If you want a cheap precision platformer, go buy Celeste on sale or something.
