These two games can in the same Indie Royale bundle I picked up a while ago so I thought I’d give them a try this weekend.

Escape Goat by MagicalTimeBeam is a very retro style game, almost to it’s detriment.  You play as a goat that has been imprisoned for witchcraft (must be in Nigeria) and you must escape by solving puzzles.  There are virtually no graphics options, just “stretch to fit” and the pixel art is more pixely than usual.  That said the game has some really interesting puzzle and the dynamic of having a helper mouse that can walk along walls and trigger switches for you and later you can swap places with it.  While I was finished in just over 4 hours it is still worthwhile to play if you get a chance (perhaps even more so because of it’s brevity).  I really liked the levels that give you time to think about your solution but not the few that require you to act from the start or else you lose.  Luckily there wasn’t very many of those and I got past them and have some fun levels afterwards.

Pros: Interesting platforming mechanic, responsive controls, quick levels give you a sense of accomplishment

Cons: Graphically quite limited, some levels require exact timing

PixelJunk Eden by Q Games is a stylish platformer of sorts.  You play as a little [something] which can jump and swing on plants that grow in the environment.  You must destroy these [symbols?] that float around in order to fill the seeds of the plants, and eventually collect the [crowns?] to complete the levels.  It’s a really hard game to explain because there isn’t really a plot just a few mechanics that allow you to traverse and change the environment.  Interestingly the main menu where you pick which level to play is basically the game (minus the collecting) and it’s really hard to navigate to find a level you want.  I actually began to get tired of the game after a few hours, though I continued to play it for 11 hours and finish the main game (I have no interest in playing through the “bonus” content).  The problem is that the game can be quite frustrating in how it controls and how unresponsive it can be to what you want to do.  Add onto that all the environmental conditions that increase each level and the constant need to keep moving because your life bar constantly runs down and must be refilled with [symbols] which don’t respawn unless you leave a level and it is not as relaxing as I thought it would be when I started.  Ultimately I probably have a worse opinion because I soldiered through and finished it rather than just quitting early.  I probably will not buy another PixelJunk game based solely on this experience.

Pros: Stylish graphics

Cons: Unresponsive controls, everything else

• Game Review
• Indie
• Platformer
• Puzzle
• Steam