MainFrames is an ideal instance of a recreation with a intelligent concept that doesn’t overstay its welcome.
Within the new indie platformer, you play as an lovable floppy disk that traverses pc desktops. The aesthetic is ridiculously charming: the various characters sprinkled all through the sport are so dang cute, and the degrees are full of utility home windows and desktop icons that function bouncing pads or gears to vary issues within the ranges. Every little thing is overlaid on pixelated panorama pc backgrounds that differ between worlds. And it’s all backed by a catchy chiptune soundtrack that basically sells the vibe.
It’s an ideal premise, and MainFrames takes the thought one step additional by frequently letting you manipulate pc home windows by clicking or dragging them such as you would with an precise mouse. So, for instance, for those who can’t attain a far-off ledge, you would possibly have the ability to hop onto a pc window with a platform and drag that window over to the ledge so you’ll be able to attain it. You’ll additionally “choose” sure home windows to activate features like flipping gravity.
Over the course of the sport, you’ll tackle progressively harder platforming puzzles that require exactly timed jumps and manipulating home windows in numerous methods. There are many totally different approaches for exploring every stage, and it’s price combing via them to see as a lot as you’ll be able to. Considered one of my favourite sections had me retrieving tissues for a clock with a chilly. A couple of occasions, I ran right into a espresso cup making espresso at a espresso machine. As soon as, I even found a photograph memorializing someone’s canine.
A few of the platforming puzzles are fairly tough. However whenever you fail a soar or run into an impediment, you respawn straight away, so it’s straightforward to throw your self at a problem as many occasions as it’s essential to beat it. I used to be in a position to skip via some rooms by being good about the place I used to be leaping, and whereas I felt fairly happy with myself, I’ve a hunch the sport’s builders deliberately designed a few of these shortcuts. You may also activate accessibility options like invincibility or infinite jumps to breeze via something you simply can’t get previous, and I’m not ashamed to confess that I did so for a handful of areas close to the top of the sport.
Whereas taking part in MainFrames, I stored drawing comparisons to Celeste. Each are good platformers with nice vibes that may get fairly powerful, however as a result of reloads are so fast, repeated failures don’t sting too badly. And each video games really feel like they play out their concepts precisely so far as they should. I rolled credit on MainFrames in slightly beneath 4 hours, and the expertise felt good.
MainFrames is now obtainable on Nintendo Change and PC.
