I just played the neon bathroom graffiti on magic mushrooms stylings of puzzle game Children Of The Sun for the first time last night, and it is very much my thing. It’s glowy! It’s violent! It’s thinky! You can be a bullet, and then you can be another bullet! Mental! (It’s technically the same bullet, but still!)
The basic idea is you take out stages of dudes, but you lose if you ever shoot without killing something. You move to where your bullet lands, so you have to plan routes through all the enemies, making sure one target is in view of the next. Also, you can steer the bullets if you want. Sometimes you can snipe a bird and feel the soaring freedom of a top down-view. Sometimes you snipe a fish and feel like a bastard. It’s great.
It’s also currently 40% off on Steam, alongside a new horde mode update. Trailer below, and details below-erer.
“Take on entire platoons of THE CULT’s brainwashed minions, but watch out for a new enemy that can fire back,” reads the update. “The sniper cultist has a bullet with your name on it, and will put a premature end to your quest for vengeance if you don’t find a way to deal with them”. I am literally just learning about this now. I’m only about eight levels in. Enemies that can fire back sound silly, in a good way.
“If you’re wondering how THE GIRL can take on an entire horde of cultists with only one bullet, well, now she can reload: by shooting herself,” it continues. Ahhhh. Now that does sound interesting – factoring your own position into the puzzle routes.
But don’t listen to me! Listen to Alice Bell (RPS in peace). I’m speaking to you from the regular-ass present, while Alice has the power to speak to you from the past, when everything was better. “Despite some frustrations, Children Of The Sun is an intense shooter-puzzler with bags of style and originality,” she wrote. “It’s an intense, bite-sized category-snubber with bags of style. Such originality is to be encouraged.”