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 lovely floppy disk that traverses pc desktops. The aesthetic is ridiculously charming: the numerous characters sprinkled all through the sport are so dang cute, and the degrees are stuffed with utility home windows and desktop icons that function bouncing pads or gears to vary issues within the ranges. Every part is overlaid on pixelated panorama pc backgrounds that differ between worlds. And it’s all backed by a catchy chiptune soundtrack that actually sells the vibe.
It’s an incredible premise, and MainFrames takes the concept one step additional by usually 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 may be capable of hop onto a pc window with a platform and drag that window over to the ledge so you may attain it. You’ll additionally “choose” sure home windows to activate capabilities like flipping gravity.
Over the course of the sport, you’ll tackle progressively tougher platforming puzzles that require exactly timed jumps and manipulating home windows in numerous methods. There are many totally different approaches for exploring every degree, and it’s value combing by means of them to see as a lot as you may. Considered one of my favourite sections had me retrieving tissues for a clock with a chilly. A couple of instances, I ran right into a espresso cup making espresso at a espresso machine. As soon as, I even came upon a photograph memorializing anyone’s canine.
A number of the platforming puzzles are fairly tough. However once you fail a soar or run into an impediment, you respawn instantly, so it’s straightforward to throw your self at a problem as many instances as it is advisable beat it. I used to be in a position to skip by means of some rooms by being sensible 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 too can activate accessibility options like invincibility or infinite jumps to breeze by means of 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 tip of the sport.
Whereas enjoying MainFrames, I saved drawing comparisons to Celeste. Each are sensible platformers with nice vibes that may get fairly robust, 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 just a little beneath 4 hours, and the expertise felt good.
MainFrames is now out there on Nintendo Swap and PC.
