Thanks for the review. I think I might enjoy this in spite of its limitations and simplistic combat.

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Quoting: KeyrockIt looks like a good game with some interesting, though not unique, mechanics. Unfortunately it's in a genre that's pretty saturated at the moment and a genre that has typically not sold well, at least not in the last 10 or 15 years. Sure, there have been exceptions, a few games in the genre that have sold exceptionally well, but those games are just that, exceptions. Sometimes good games come out and fail, it happens, it has always happened. I consider Psychonauts to be one of the best games ever made, I am not alone in that opinion, the game was showered with praise around the time of its initial release. Yet it's a game that is famous for being a commercial failure.

Anyway, hopefully the game does get at least some more sales. It does look like a well made game and it sucks when good games fail to sell. That said, I have zero interest in playing a super hard platformer right now. And that, I think, is the crux of the problem. The majority of gamers don't want to play super hard platformers these days, it's a very niche market. A couple games transcending the market and selling exceptionally well may have given people the illusion that the market is bigger than it actually is.

Some interesting thoughts, and it's undeniably true that most difficult platformers (or even platformers in general) aren't selling well at all on PC at the moment. And if you look at the top seller list on Steam, it's heavily dominated by typical PC genres like strategy, shooters, RPGs, crafting and survival games. I don't think that necessarily means that platformers don't have the potential to sell well though, since they often have good sales numbers on consoles (I think that goes a long way to explain the success of Super Meat Boy). The big console releases with their massive marketing backing obviously can't be compared to low budget indies, but both of the new generation Donkey Kong Country games moved well over a million copies on Nintendo consoles, and they're both very hard platformers, so I think there's a potential, but these games aren't reaching their audience. I'm hopeful that if Steam Machines sell well and the Steam front page is tailored well enough to increase the visibility of these games to its customers, there might be a bigger market for these kinds of games in the future. This is all speculation though, and there's no telling what will happen.

And I certainly agree with you about Psychonauts being one of the best games ever, which is probably obvious given my bacon avatar. :)

Quoting: noinformationhereI would have normally waited for a sale, but this seems to be a worthy cause! Thanks for the recommendation, flesk. I find I can always trust your good taste in games.

I hope the increased publicity brings the devs more success.

Thanks for the vote of confidence. :) I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I do.

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Glad to hear you like it. :) I'm going to try to get my wife or a friend to play it with me, but I might pick it up for myself in the meantime. Looks like a perfect fit for some couch co-op fun on a Steam Machine in the near future.

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I'm just a regular backer of this one, so no beta for me, but I'm really looking forward to it. Looks gorgeous!

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Quoting: hardpenguinThis game looks very much like EDGE [External Link] from 2011.

Yeah, it looks a bit like it, but plays nothing like it. EDGE is good though, and is definitely a game to check out for anyone who hasn't done so, and are fans of "isometric arcade platformers". I do feel like it overstays its welcome a bit though, and I haven't gotten all the way through it myself, but I'm a huge fan of their game Toki Tori 2+, which is a "metroidvania-esque" puzzle platformer.

EDIT: Come to think of it, I had the same discussion on the Steam forums [External Link] last month. :P

I've played an early press build of Induction, and while the two games might look similar, they're vastly different gameplay wise. EDGE is basically a platformer with some really difficult timing challenges, and Induction is a very challenging puzzler. If I was to compare Induction to another game, I'd say Braid and The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom are both more similar.

I forgot about Gateways [External Link], which I briefly mentioned in my previous article, but that also has a bit of these kinds of puzzles, and is worth checking out.

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Thanks for the nice comments, everyone! :) It was a pleasure interviewing valcan_s, and I was happy to get so rigorous and honest answers from him.

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I love VVVVVV, and the fact that you can't jump and have to flip gravity to get past obstacles certainly makes these games similar. In my opinion, VVVVVV is much more of an exploration and precision platformer though (similar to Knytt Underground and You Have to Win the Game), so that's why I decided not to make that comparison.

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I had missed these kinds of round-up articles, so it's nice to see them make a return on GOL. (Though I'm embarrassed to see I didn't contribute even a single article last week.)

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Looks awesome! And it reminds me a bit of the AoM expansion The Titans, which I thought was the coolest thing ever back in the day.

Notable point: People really do forget how much it costs to make games, especially if you’re making something other than a simple platformer. Steam is as always a cesspit of vitriol, and I suggest you all ignore the Steam forum for TITANS. Developers aren’t charities, developers and general support takes up a lot of time and money. Kickstarters are generally priced way, way below what developers actually need to develop and support the game after release, remember that folks.

Well put, and absolutely something to keep in mind.

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In case anyone missed it, Fran Bow now has a new demo on Steam [External Link], Itch.io [External Link] and Game Jolt [External Link].

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