“SELF” by Logan Forman, Matthew Hobbs & Connor Grail.
“[Recover] the fragments of your [self and] be touched by the higher being[.]”
In “SELF” you control a small soul that wants to recover all parts of itself. However, these are scattered in all possible corners of the game world, and to get to them you have to exhaust your own jumping abilities as much as possible. In its normal state, the soul can only make small jumps. However, whenever it leaves the ground, it can prepare a ‘slingshot jump’ for a short time.
In these moments we take control of a kind of ‘super spirit’ of the soul and steer it slightly to the right or left. Once the preparation mode is over, the soul is then virtually catapulted in that direction. The resulting jumping power is much higher than usual, which means that even distant platforms can be reached without any problems once you have mastered the controls perfectly. However, the ability can usually only be used once per jump.
“Usually” is also the right keyword here. The later levels become particularly exciting, providing not only deadly laser traps and shattering glass plates, but also items that let the player perform an additional power jump in mid-air. This simple gameplay concept combined with fantastically bassy background music, crisp feedback and excellent level design already make “SELF” a gorgeous prototype, but the additional features like a speedrun mode and bonus levels are a total blast as well. [PLAY]
