You got your launch game in my platformer! Or is it the other way around? Either way, in Rocket Pets, a new game from Jay Armstrong, you play as a cute fluffy little animal with a jetpack strapped to its back. Your goal is to collect as many coins and powerups as you can before your jetpack overheats or you get killed by spikes (or any of the many other obstacles).
You run forward automatically; click and hold or press [spacebar] to lift yourself up. As you advance, you'll earn coins that you can use to unlock upgrades, new worlds, and (most importantly) other animals. These other animals serve as extra lives, but they each have their own set of upgrades. And you can even buy them hats! And since Jimp did the art, the hats are flippin' adorable. Rocket Pets proves that horizontal launch games and platformers are two great tastes that can indeed go great together.
A good game, artwork and music are top-notch, but repetitive and boring. Definitely in need of a well-thought-out sequel:
- Different abilities between pets?
- More variation in the levels (not just style and difficulty changes)
- World-specific events, like weather and hazards
- More enemies than the generic rocket.
- More "launch." Feels tacked on and unnecessary.
- More upgrades: Aerodynamics, defense, weapons, running speed, etc.
- Faster overall. Variable run speed?
The repetitive nature of these games needs a bit of consideration - seems to me like not enough thought was put into neither the programming nor the game design, with no real influx of novelties to keep it going past the first ten or so runs.
Paw coins that cannot be reached in any way, the finicky way jetting off of slopes works, the cannon or the death boost dropping you right in front of death, the counter-intuitive hit detection for near misses and falling off the bottom of the screen and that ONE part of the fourth world just lead to a mediocre experience.
A very, very pretty and good-sounding mediocre experience.
Cute enough game, but poorly balanced. Once I'd upgraded a single pet's rocket pack I ran 3500m and only died then because I was bored and careless. There's no reason to die once you're fully upgraded, so there's no reason to continue playing. At the very least the levels should get harder the further you go.
Also the fact that the achievements are rolled out 3 at a time is annoying; I got the achievement for "750 meters in a single round" after racking up 3500. The first one is something like "15 meters in a single round", which is far less than you get just from the cannon.
Also it's not really a platformer.
BOOOOOORRRRRRIIIIINNNNNNGGGGG
It's cute, but not particularly fun.
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