Offspring fling is a platformer which has a puzzle elements and a deceptively hidden layer to the gameplay and even though the game is relatively old but still stands up to some of the titles today!
The gameplay is one of the most intriguing things i've come across in a game, on the surface you have to collect your offspring and get them to the exit and leave, there are enemies and hazards in the way which all result in the levels being set up into a puzzle platformer style, then there's gold flower times to get to give a speed element to the game, it works great for the surface layer, then comes in the REAL challenge of this game which is the rainbow flower times, they're extremely tight and excruciatingly difficult IL times to beat, there's a replay ghost which is a ninja in each level and those show the dev's route and time for that level, which equates to the rainbow times, now these have some of the most insane tech required to get every extra millisecond to beat them, and i think they're extremely interesting and well done, but sometimes the concept is overcooked, because while i think dev times obviously should be tight, there are a handful of levels which collectively made up for around 50% of my playtime yet are around 2% of the game, i don't mind hard to beat IL times but they needed to be spread across the board a little more imo.
The graphics are cutesy and works well for the game, everything is generally appealing to look at although i found the higher graphics level to be a bit much visually, its able to be turned down so i had no issues.
The music and sound are mid tier for me, the music i didn't particularly care for, its upbeat but just lacks enough energy to it to be standout, either add more varied music or have the music be higher quality, the SFX are top notch though, everything responds and adds to the flow of the game in accordance to what's happening.
There are some things i have to put down about the game however, which are the age and technicalities of it, see i understand this game is OLD and platformers have come a long way since, but the framerate is generally around 50fps and it causes inputs to be eaten sometimes, which in tight IL times gets very frustrating, the game also has terrible controller support and actually crashes the game if you have a controller plugged in, i was able to resolve some of this issue but its generally inconsistent.
Overall a very nice overlooked gem from way back, i'd consider it a minorly flawed beauty, if you're looking for a casual beat all level experience it has you covered, and for the more hardcore players, it offers a tight set of dev times to beat, and considering its age i'd say its done a great job of being a well designed interesting experience!
