This is a very polished, very charming platformer. I love the concept of it, and once I figured out how to hook onto ice blocks (this took me an embarrassingly long time) I got the hang of the basic mechanics very quickly. The graphics aren't totally to my taste- I'm not a huge fan of pixel art- but they're well executed.
I do really like that it's a chill game both figuratively and literally, and that it's relatively forgiving, with icicles just knocking you down instead of killing you.
Unfortunately, there were a few little frustrations that ultimately killed my run.
The first is that I just found the controls really awkward. I played with the keyboard, and I really wish it was arrow keys and zxc instead of wasd with space and jk. It also felt like there was one too many controls; maybe hook and tether should be the same button, or jump and hook, or hook on and hook off, I'm not sure, but I kept hitting the wrong button.
The second is that momentum isn't really preserved the way you'd expect coming off a swing, and that renders what should be easily doable jumps into barely doable ones that need split-second timing and pixel perfect precision. It seems to work a little better if you enter a swing with momentum, but I was rarely able to pull that off because I kept getting cross-fingered with the controls.
I got stuck in the second large cave with the grappling hooks and eventually just threw in the towel.
Honestly, I think the game is probably fine the way it is, as long as you use a controller and are good at platformers. For me, it doesn't quite hit the mark.
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