itch.io

This is absolutely fantastic, ridiculously underpriced and one of my favourite Indie Games I played in the last few years. Just calling it a Boulder Dash clone would not do it justice. For those who dont know what Boulder Dash is: You try to dig around gathering gems while avoiding being crushed by falling objects. Sounds simple, but in reality makes for some very tense mix of puzzle and action gameplay where you plan out your routes and then pull them off in time.

This is the inofficial spiritual successor to the original Boulder Dash gamesin my books and the best game I ever played in its subgenre. The first world alone would be an amazing Boulder Dash game with its varied challenges, very tight and balanced level design that are a joy to puzzle out over several hours. And then the developer added 5 more worlds of that quality. Some of these levels have no clear explanation of how you even finish the level,making it necessary to explore its mechanics carefully, which I absolutely adore. They are also a blast to optimize for finishing and maximizing your score. That score will also be important to unlock further levels down the line, giving you a perfect incentive to perfect every inch of the self-dug labyrinths.

The game also doesnt mess around with modernizing the level of challenge as the levels in the first world are already genuinely hard, but never unfair. They ask you to keep an open mind, be aware of what your surroundings, experiment with the tools at your disposal and is genuinely a perfect continuation of what Boulder Dash started. New mechanics, new items, hidden secrets, TONS of content and replayability for any level. It is a tiny bit unfortunate how relentless the game is in gating its content if you just want to experience the later levels as the game asks you to really get down with the previous levels, which make keep you stuck for a while occasionally. It also doesnt explain its controls well enough (laying Bombs is right alt + direction), but other than that, this is an amazing, amazing game and faithful sequel to one of the most iconic games ever made. I honestly do not believe you could make a better Boulder Dash sequel while staying true to the roots of the series. 4,5/5