While most platformers just kill you with their spikes and traps, Quetzal needs you to (carefully) fling yourself into hazards to keep on jumping.
While at Insomnia Gaming Festival 68, I stumbled upon Quetzal, which actually has a whole new way of playing. This game is a rage-inducing platformer where you must use dangers to bounce around and survive. Everything you do is super fast-paced, requiring you to take on high risk moves with precision so that you can survive and get to the end. This is done through swiping your mouse down at dangers to bounce off of them. Bouncing off of them successfully will bounce you off of the danger and refresh your jump. You can bounce off of so many things like spikes, laser balls, saws. However, timing is key.
In later levels, you will even use this mechanic to fire back lasers and bullets to destroy your enemies. It’s a real challenge when it comes to bouncing objects the right way while also doing it at the right time to not get yourself killed. The stages are all really well designed, and will push you to be take every bounce with care.
Quetzal is challenging. It takes a bit to actually get used to this entirely new way of playing a platformer. I really enjoyed my time with it, even if I couldn’t actually get that far. At Insomnia, I got the chance to see others make it much further than me, as they seemed to have more patience, and there were bosses, extremely challenging jump sequences, and some tight movements that made me gasp. It’s a game that I can see many people trying to speedrun, but one wrong move and you’ll land on the hazards you are trying to use to your advantage.
Quetzal is currently in development, but in the meantime, you can add it to your Steam Wishlist.
About The Author
