Developed by a husband-and-wife indie studio, Queen Bee Games, and published by Akupara Games, Spinch is a new psychedelic platformer for PC and Nintendo Switch. Queen Bee Games was formed back in 2013 and Spinch is their very first project. Featuring plenty of colors and mind-twisting art, Spinch is a platformer that is simple to play yet beautiful to look at while maintaining a high level of challenge. This is our review of the Steam version of Spinch in which we try not to lose our mind with all the psychedelic platforming.
Spinch starts with a little level where you overcome a few simple challenges and finding your children but when you find your children, a weird psychedelic monster appears and sucks in your children. This marks the start of your journey where you begin looking for your children spread across the psychedelic world that is overrun by equally disturbing monsters of weird shapes and sizes. Since this is a Psychedelic platformer, you can expect to see lots and lots of colors throughout your journey with twisting patterns and layers.
Similar to most platformers, playing Spinch is really easy as you only have to worry about two keys. One is your dash while the other is your jump. You are required to combine both your jump and dash to reach different areas and platforms to collect your children and eventually reach the end of the level. The game plays out in the form of small levels that are not really that small. Depending on your platforming skill, each level will take you around 7-8 minutes to complete but might take you a little longer as well if you take your sweet time completing levels.
Spinch itself is a hyper-agile organism but is white is color but everything around Spinch is full of colors. You can easily call it a color explosion. The art design of Spinch is brilliant and the main reason behind the beautiful art design of the game is the award-winning Canadian cartoonist Jesse Jacob. The vibrant colors and patterns are easily visible right from the start of the game however they get more and more intense as you progress in the game.
The levels in Spinch follow a hierarchy where you only unlock the next level after you have completed a previous level. There are six unique worlds, each offering a unique setting, for you to explore, and at the end of each world, you have to fight a crazy, Psychedelic boss. The boss fights are one of my favorite aspects from the game as not only do they look crazy but also offer a great challenge. Apart from the main levels, you can also unlock some bonus levels along the way and complete them for some added challenge. Each bonus level offers a different challenge such as saving your cousins as they are being mercilessly thrown down from a great height.
You get three lives for completing a stage but even if you die, you respawn at the previous checkpoint that you picked up. Checkpoints are not something that is automatically obtained in the game. They are floating in the levels at certain places and are completely optional. They often mark the start of a relatively difficult platforming section as well. If you want to make the game more challenging, you can avoid using these checkpoints, and then if you die, you respawn at the start of the level.
However, if you want to save some time, you can get these checkpoints and simply save some backtracking if you die. You get three lives for taking some damage but if you fall down or get a fourth hit, you respawn back the last checkpoint that you passed. There is no penalty for dying again and again in the game so you can play the game just the way you like it. As you play the levels, you can also collect small, white boxes. Collect enough of these boxes and you granted a short invincibility window during which you become immune to damage and your movement speed gets a boost as well. These come in handy but in most cases, they are just wasted since you might need them later at a tougher place. You can sort of control when it activates by not collecting the last one required to trigger it and only pick the last one when you really need it.
Spinch is an extremely straightforward platformer. You will be required to do a little puzzle-solving along the way in order to access secret rooms and some of your children will be hidden away from the main obvious path of the level. You get a timer with an online leaderboard where you can try to beat the times of players from around the world for each level. The game also comes with a trophies section which you can hunt for as well if you are a trophy hunter. While platforming with vibrant colors, you also get to hear a brilliant, upbeat soundtrack that is perfectly in-tune with the speedy gameplay of the title.
Final Verdict:
Spinch offers a fast-paced and crisp platforming experience that really delivers with each keystroke. The art design and colors of the game really set the Psychedelic mood and is sure to tickle your brain with its weird patterns and movements of colors as you run around frantically jumping, dodging, and dashing around to reach platforms or avoiding many enemies. Couple this with a great soundtrack and some really cool boss fights and you have yourself a solid platformer. Highly recommended for its great gameplay and brilliant visuals.
Final Score: 9.0/10
