I finally played Spacegulls, from the creators of Micro Mages and Böbl. It’s a charming little platformer starring a space seagull who must rescue some seagull cosmonauts. The first version of Spacegulls was made in 1 week and won 1st place in the NESdev Compo 2020/21. Man, I wish I could develop such a nice game is that small period of time!
It wasn’t made to be a large scope game. You can easily beat it in 30 minutes, but still, there are many rooms to explore, and some secret pathways to discover. The bright cartoony graphics is certainly the high point of the game. There are some fun enemies, and some hard enemies. Your only way of attacking is to jump on them. This may be the low point, since a variety of attacks and/or power ups would have been nice. But since it’s a small game, that’s okay.
Like I said, it has a bit of exploration. Some cosmonauts are hard to find, I found only 3 on the first run. That gives a nice replay value. The music/sfx are also nice, nothing too remarkable, but certainly enjoyable. The game feels like it was made by professionals who took good care of it. Put the same concept in different hands, and the game wouldn’t have been that fun.
It is certainly a must play. Go download it… right now!
My score: 8.5 out of 10
Where to buy: https://morphcatgames.itch.io/spacegulls
