Only by completing the seven trials will you earn your wings in Daniel Linssen's Birdsong. You are a young bird leaving the nest for the first time. As you leave, the world seems to stretch out before you, so that it's all in view but just out of your reach.
You can move your character with [A] and [D] or the arrow keys, and jump with either [W], the [Up] key or [Spacebar]. Pressing [Enter] at certain pedestals builds a nest, which functions as a save point, and [R] resets you to your last save point. The entire game is one large area which you'll explore in order to collect twigs to build nests with, find medallions to bring you closer to your wings, and activate pedestals to grant you abilities like higher jumps or wall-jumping. Certain parts of the world won't be accessible until you gain certain abilities, and you'll spend the game exploring until every part of the world is within reach.
With its simple but evocative pixel-art style, Birdsong creates a moody and mysterious world, whose puzzles are both satisfying and fiendishly difficult. Don't be surprised if you find yourself plunging to your death more than a few times, it's all part of the journey.
Really disliked this game. The fisheye view is really nauseating. The controls are not good enough for a platformer like this. Also cannot move character mid-fall. I quit after many attempts to reach a high ledge. There was just no motivation to keep playing.
It should be mentioned that this was a Ludum Dare entry, with the fisheye effect being a simple way to squeeze the whole game on one screen, which also removes the major time-waster of getting lost in large platformers.
I played this a long while back, and still remember the huge difficulty of dealing with screen distortion on every single block. Perhaps it's just me, but I found many of the developer's other (non-distorted) platformers equally tough and unforgiving.
(To whoever has power over this stuff: please add the "platform" and "metroidvania" tags.)
Made it to the end only using 1 branch! Had to save
on that crazy "drop off and hug the side of the tiny ledge you're on wall jump" before the double jump :P
It's a game in 'Play this!' format. Remember we use this tag for the games which do not meet our standards but has something original or innovative or fun. In other words something to show.
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