In the United States, 14 states where oil and gas are key industries passed laws in recent years restricting state agencies from doing business with financial institutions that consider climate risk in investment decisions or pledge to reduce emissions
I'm currently playing mainly the free hexceed, which to my surprise has a lot of free content. I found it mentioned elsewhere on Lemmy, and have been playing it since. hexceed is a hexagon puzzle game.
Being controllable mouse-only is nice. Needing focus it's not always fitting to play though. :)
I also bought some pick-bundles and tried out Cash Cow DX, but it wasn't for me.
And I tried playing The Ascend last weekend, but the Steam Controller track pad feels awful for full-degree aiming.
I've also been playing Koa and the Five Pirates of Mara, but am somehow on a break there currently. If I go back to a platformer on my PC, it'll probably be that though, to continue playing through it.
What do you think about full-degree aiming in platformers?
I like being able to play platformers with gamepads, but the Steam Controller has no right stick, and the track pad doesn't feel appropriate/consistent enough for aiming.
Not that I have not played platformers with keyboard and mouse and enjoyed them. A good title will still win over a worse title, but in general, I think nowadays I prefer platformers without aiming anything.
Thinking of Webbed, I think I may have tried that with gamepad first, but had to switch to keyboard and mouse. Which worked well, and was a very enjoyable game. But I can't chill on the couch with that control scheme.
For me, great platformers have fluid and responsive controls, and either implement a forgiving persisting experience (climbing the environment) or quick and not too far-off resets (level screens).
Platforming can be great in pure platformers, action platformers, 2d or 3d. They may shift but do not limit how stories can be told and how worlds or progression can be designed.
I imagine it can be difficult to balance forgiving platforming with challenges between novice and experienced players. Often, we see alternative or stretch-goal paths for collectibles or challenges, which is a good approach to serve both kinds of players - even if maybe not total novices.
Introducing game mechanics step by step can give good introductions and learning controls, preferably in-game without dialogue, popups, or text-only introductions. They can guide into a natural level and mechanics design progression, giving a natural progression across longer gameplay.
I started with what I had fond memories of and came to mind, but of course, I went to my steam library, and looked through games tagged platformer. And now I'm wondering if I should also link my reviews of the titles, specifically the most interesting ones. Either way, the list of fond memories / very positives became too long for one list, so it's split by category now.
3d ego platformers
A Story About My Uncle, left a lasting impact on me back then as a very good if not exceptional title
Portal
Hot Lava, great, pure 3d platformer, a lot of of quality content
Supraland, 3d puzzle and action platformer
3d 3rd-person platformers
New Super Lucky's Tale, a great 3d platformer
A Hat in Time, a great 3d platformer, with cute characters, good humor
RiME, I remember I wrote a very positive review about RiME
A Short Hike, great
Yooka-Laylee
2d platformers
Sheepy: A Short Adventure, free, exceptional atmosphere
Ori, with its great atmosphere and visuals
Webbed, very cute, great theming, playing as a spider
Yoku's Island Express, great mixing of pinball and platformer, in a great setting
Spiritfarer, great atmosphere
Battleblock Theater, great absurd humor
Super Meat Boy, ok, this has been a long time ago, but it was incredibly fluid and fast, with a ton of content
Dustforce DX
Jubilee, I played this on my Steam Deck quite a bit (unfortunately no save sync)
Trine, for its great physics approach and narrated humorous storytelling
Wunderling DX, an "auto-runner platformer", quite interesting, well polished, so try to for something different
Braid, I don't actually know if it holds up today, it's been so long ago
I'd love to hear your opinions on
A Highland Song, deep lore, great atmosphere - I felt a bit lost though, or wasn't captivated beyond that, and beyond one run
Treasures of Aegean, another "roguelite" platformer, with interesting progression and discovery - still, I found it well made, but ultimately not personally captivating, maybe because of the disorganized nature [of re-runs and timeloop-crossing story]
Sable, only partially platformer, and not the best quality overall, but great atmosphere, exploration, and platforming discovery
I like watching Jauwn's NFT game reviews. They almost feel like satire, with sarcasm, jokes, and criticism. They're an interesting insight into the NFT game fad and its products.
In other videos it's also sad to see they work as scams, leaving [naive] people lose a lot of money.