Downwell

simple but works... very hard game, if you die starts all over again... that's the bad. sound and graphics remenber me old nes games.

Let's get the (fake) difficulty out of the way first. It's hard because it's fast not because you need skill just as anything gets hard once you feel like life is operating just beyond what your mind can keep up with. I ran it through an emulator and slowed it down and sure enough the gameplay is not in the timing as such or learning enemy patterns or structures of the well, no no no. Your ability to button mash fast enough to stay alive is what makes this game hard. (Or can you learn to dodge a lot which also works). It's aimed at hyperactive teenagers with ADHD who have caffeine intravenously piped all day long who have run out of social media to button mash. If you're over 20, really, don't bother with this game. Leaving aside the fake difficulty, the actual mechanics of platforming are bad, often not falling off a platform when expecting too and likewise falling off when you expect the wobble animation to appear. I continually remain baffled as to why the platforming games with some awful platforming mechanics and truly foul player feedback (or lack of) consistently get whooped up. Scoring and gems are stingy. The shop appears more often when you have nothing to spend. Upgrades are a ok but weapons don't really scale or do anything interesting. Enemies are difficult to read - a combined fault of the very limited colour scheme, bad feedback to the player and the manic speed of the game. Amassing points unlocks different palettes to select (in addition to the default black, red, white) but they all look rubbish and don't solve the problems created when you have three colours in a 8x8 sprite and need to convey a variety of intentions to the player. Even with a controller Downwell is thrilling and frustrating for the first few minutes and gets dull and frustrating after that, how soon I suppose depends on old you are above 20.

While I can't comment on the gameplay itself, I will say this: any game that is literally speaking physically painful to even just look at is not a good game by any definition of the phrase. Talk about it being "retro" and "stylistic" and "minimalist" all you want, that doesn't make this game any less horrendous of an eye-strain. I'm all for having a "retro style" (see Stardew Valley) or "minimalist graphics" (see Thomas Was Alone) in games, as long as it looks good. Downwell, however, just hurts my eyes. Horribly, at that.