Garbanzo Quest

You know how sometimes life treats you to these insane coincidences? Like, you think of someone for the first time in 5 years and it just so happens that they're in town today and you run into them on the bus. Or, for some reason, every time you demo your work something unexpected and never seen before happens. Swiss psychologist Carl Jung called it "synchronicity", and I call it "banzo" - short for Garbanzo, because they tend to happen to me ridiculously often, and for some reason often involve either the word "garbanzo" or just chickpeas. And of course, this means that the game called "Garbanzo Quest" had to be something I've been craving for literal decades, the craving long forgotten by now... and yet. If you were born before the Great Brainrotting, chances are you played Super Mario World (1990) on the SNES as a kid. Seemingly not much of a game looking at it now; just a 2D platformer with a minimal plot and world map style level selection screen - but should you actually start playing, you'll likely find it hard to stop. Why is that? The controls are great, every level offers an unique experience and has its own look and feel, and there's this little secret layer to the game. See, many levels in the game have two exits. The hidden ones - as opposed to the main ones - are relatively easy to find, but just hard enough that it feels satisfying once you do; and they don't just give you shortcuts or lead to the same place you'd go to otherwise - they lead to hidden levels, of which many also have two exits. Do you see what's going on? This becomes a little secret network. And not only it allows you to beat the game far before you're supposed to, it makes you wonder: what [i]else[/i] is hidden? How deep does the rabbit hole go? Wait, which game are we talking about here? Super Mario World or Garbanzo Quest? The answer, broadly speaking, is "yes". Good 'Banzo here very confidently replicates what Mario did back then while also managing to be completely different. There are no powerups, but there are equippable abilities that you can unlock in any order you wish. Your main method of attack is not jumping on enemies but shooting (well, spitting). There are some bullet heck elements, but your abilities allow you to cruise past them, feeling like a pro (assuming you have some gaming skill at least). "OH MY GOD I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU MADE IT PAST THAT!" - my partner, watching me play. "I don't know what the hell am I looking at, but I can't stop watching" - also my partner watching me play. A minor complaint would be, uh, "leftist writing"? But not in the right wing culture war sense. Basically, the plot is "We had actual communism, but then the climate changed, evil capitalist skeleton came and foughked us over" - which is a bit of a hard sell for me these days. Like, have you met actual leftists IRL that aren't "ivory tower" intellectuals? I have, and I've completely lost hope that such people have the capacity of working for the actual common good (as opposed to ingroup good). And the ivory tower leftist intellectuals aren't very good at actually getting things done - signed, an ivory tower leftist intellectual. Yes, this is a self burn, move on. And of course, all your communist friends are massive jerks. I want to help them, that's literally the point of the game, but everybody's so incredibly rude it's bordering on abusive. Almost everyone would be "least favourite character" in any other game, but here everybody's like that. I suppose this is a cultural difference, I can't deal with US-Southern stories because all social situations seem to be posturing cocque fights about who's the biggest donkeyhole, so for fairness' sake let's say this is a matter of taste. Still, I can't help but see the game's takeaway as "socially inept people need to band together, let's all be jerks to each other and defeat capitalism!", whatever that means. At least all these twatologists are pulling their weight in the community facilities such as the farm and the kitchen, so I can't complain too much. But don't let any of this deter you. This is an expertly crafted game. I'm very, very impressed; many elements are absolute top notch. The music, the levels, the variety, the balance, the tight look, the little things. We got ourselves one of these artisan solodevs out here - zagawee is one to watch out for, and already their next game is in production. Hell yeah brother, looking forward to what else you can cook up. But most importantly - thanks for this. Can we... befriend the "doctor" after beating him for the last time? I'd love to see that added. "Only" 30% of players have beaten the final boss, which is otherwise a pretty good number, but for game this awesome it feels a little low. Maybe it gets too hard for some people; this very much is a game where you need to stay on your toes. But if you got the skills and want to experience something weird, unique and expertly crafted - put dat 'Banzo in the pot, I mean, the shopping cart and don't look back. [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/42922988/][strike]Banzo Kajooee[/strike] my curator page[/url]

The game starts off great but gets more and more brutally punishing as you go along. Typically, you want the opposite -- a power fantasy where you become an overpowered god. Ori does a good job of this, introducing plenty of moves and powers that make the movement extremely smooth. Celeste also does this, with extended movement options. With garbanzo, you just sort of start as a goober and remain a goober, while levels just get more and more punishing. It got to the point where I stopped looking for secrets. And even the main path I stopped looking forward to playing, just sort of playing out of obligation before dropping the game entirely. I would say, roughly, the first half of the game is fun...ish. After that point, it drifts towards anti-fun. Sure, you can beat it. It's not really a skill issue vs non-skill-issue thing. It's just, the game is not fun enough to play. Also, this didn't really factor into my rating. I just don't really like the gameplay. But the vibes felt... off. There's a weird sort of existential angst / contempt that permeates this game. It's not front and center, but it keeps creeping in at the edges. Multiple 'friends' you rescue either actively hate your guts or are simply evil. Multiple levels feel adversarial and seem designed to waste your time. There are, like, five actual friends total out of everyone you rescue. There's a sort of bleakness despite the anti-capitalism activism messaging. Again, not a big deal, but it sort of clashes extremely hard with the whimsical art style and cheerful music. But yeah. I respect the fact that this was made by a solo developer. That is absurdly difficult to do. But at the end of the day, it's about how a game feels to play. And I actively stopped having fun pretty quick.

This might be the best platformer I've ever played. The simplistic moveset allows for an extremely diverse and expressive level design. The quick-swap badge system is great as it gives you multiple tools that can give you a leg-up in a pinch if you use them right. The music is baller. The humor is very charming, its quirky but not in-your-face. The difficulty is perfectly balanced, it's difficult without being frustrating with every screen being a checkpoint. Extremely smart game design.

An absolute delight of a game, which succeeds with flying colours on everything it aims to accomplish and then some! Every level introduces a new mechanics or takes them in interesting new directions, with the moment to moment gameplay being an absolute delight with how simple it is on the surface but the sheer depth it invites for those who wish to experiment! I was grinning ear to ear throughout it's entire runtime which was a perfect length which didn't feel like it overstayed it's welcome by a second! If you're wanting a new and incredible 2D platformer this is up there with the greats!

Great platformer all around, doesn't overstay its welcome. Would recommend 100%

So much effort and whimsy oozes out of everything. I keep putting off playing the game more because it feels like I need to save it for special occassions. Special, charming game.

really fun 2D platformer :]