Islets
Islets is a nice little self contained metroidvania. Made by a single guy, it's very well polished, no bugs, good gameplay loop and really nothing major to complain about. The game consists of 5 islands, which you need to bring back together by defeating bosses. Stitching islands together opens more paths, along with various movement and combat abilities such as double jump and being able to create platforms with your arrows. I only got stuck on where to go a couple of times. If anything, my only complaint was that it was too easy; I never really had to think or retry bosses more than a couple of times. If you're a fan of the genre, it's worth playing. Completed in 7 hours.
Pros
- Aside from progression upgrade rewards, there are also randomised minor upgrades that you get from solving platforming challenges
- There's a letterbox where NPCs you've met will occasionally write you cute letters
- Some of the abilities are interesting. Being able to shoot platforms feels quite unique
- Optionally you can buy "here's where to go next" markers if you get stuck
- Movement feels generally good
- There are save rooms right before every boss, so no long runs back
- Lovely NPCs to meet. There's an especially cute mouse who owns a garden who lost his plants
- As you progress, parts of the map get stitched together, opening new pathways and making travelling around easier
- There are teleporters for fast travel. These only work on one Islet, but as you stitch Islets together, the teleport network also links
- The platforming is broken up by occasional airship sections when you need to find a new island
- Very well polished for a single person dev
Cons
- This is highly subjective, but it was very easy
- The framerate sometimes feels jittery, and is locked at 60
- Resolution only goes up to 1920x1080. Usually it automatically scales up and looks fine, but sometimes it gets stuck in a 1080p window on the desktop
- I usually end up having to re-open the game multiple times when I start, because it doesn't recognise a controller when you plug one in while the game is open, and you can't change the audio output source after opening the game
- Levels are very blocky. The design and layout is good, but it's boring that they're all just boxes