Froggo's Adventure: Verdant Venture

Despite only taking half an hour to complete in a normal run, I'll admit the kirby-vibe is truly on point, it genuinely felt like playing one of the early Kirby games and at no point did it break the illusion (P.S. Had this game recommended by a friend a long while ago and I can't believe it took me this long to finally try it out. Totally worth it!)

I didn't even know there were indie Kirby-likes, but there's this, it's cheap, it's cute, it's fun, it's well-designed, it understands the fundamentals of game design where it knows to be fun without making it punishingly hard, without making it too easy in the later levels either. All for a game you could finish in a half hour, maybe less, but has some nice little bonus things to keep you going for another hour if you want. And then this game has sequels so it's like a taste test for future games. Platformers need more games like this for sure.

This is an adorable Kirby-style platform game that can be completed within 90-120 minutes. It's shorter than your typical NES platformer, but it's very well made so I enjoyed every minute of it. Basically Froggo can launch a tongue out to eat enemies and also bounce on balls. There's a lot of physics-based platforming like swinging on arms with chains attached. There are a couple skill-based achievements and you need to collect gems for 100% completion. The gems aren't hard to find but you also have to collect every coin and this can be pretty tricky on the later levels. Really this is a very charming game and I would say it's one of the best indie platformers I've ever played if it wasn't so short. It needed 30-40 levels instead of the eight that are here. There is a final boss fight and the whole thing feels like a miniature, polished experience that could have been much more if more time was put in to lengthen it.