Widget Satchel Review
Not Recommended
It’s not great, but decent. Controlling the character is snappy, but controlling the character in the world is not. Visuals are partially nice and cute, but level design and visuals is somewhat bland. At the same time it has multiple routes and alternatives, and is freshened up with physics objects scattered throughout.
It may be worthwhile for specific players who enjoy platforming, and collecting through multiple routes, and who do not mind the flaws.
The setup and visuals are cute. The visuals are cute, but the tile based levels visually repetitive. The playful non-gameplay physics objects scattered throughout the levels lighten them up and make them more interesting and living.
One main aspect of the game, albeit optional, is collecting resources to unlock abilities. The first two were easy to unlock. Collecting is tedious and I had no interest in pursuing that further. For completionists and those not minding taking several routes and exploring to the last corner to collecting all resources, this may be worthwhile. For me, that’s not fun nor interesting here in the bland levels and setting.
Running through the levels “simply” to complete them is somewhat bland too.
Enemy types can be hard to distinguish. They do have distinct coloring, but shaping is only marginally different. First introducing enemies that zap/damage you, and then later ones you can and have to jump on to increase jumping height is unfortunate.
It’s possibly if not easy to get stuck. This has to be identified by the player themselves, and the last checkpoint has to be reloaded manually. (I also encountered a bug where loading the last checkpoint was broken and resulted in a grey screen while gameplay still seemed to work. Going through the main menu to reload worked fine though.)
The level design is punishing at times, with climbing sections over multiple levels with the possibility to fall down all of them and have to reclimb them. This is made worse by adding time-based jump boosters (pads) which do not accept any pre-hit leniency, so jump has to be pressed at or after hitting them. A section as described is what ultimately made me give up and stop playing.
All in all I found the visuals interesting, part of the controls snappy, but the experience and gameplay very bland. Widget Satchel may be worthwhile to some players still, but not for me or most.
It may be worthwhile for specific players who enjoy platforming, and collecting through multiple routes, and who do not mind the flaws.
The setup and visuals are cute. The visuals are cute, but the tile based levels visually repetitive. The playful non-gameplay physics objects scattered throughout the levels lighten them up and make them more interesting and living.
One main aspect of the game, albeit optional, is collecting resources to unlock abilities. The first two were easy to unlock. Collecting is tedious and I had no interest in pursuing that further. For completionists and those not minding taking several routes and exploring to the last corner to collecting all resources, this may be worthwhile. For me, that’s not fun nor interesting here in the bland levels and setting.
Running through the levels “simply” to complete them is somewhat bland too.
Enemy types can be hard to distinguish. They do have distinct coloring, but shaping is only marginally different. First introducing enemies that zap/damage you, and then later ones you can and have to jump on to increase jumping height is unfortunate.
It’s possibly if not easy to get stuck. This has to be identified by the player themselves, and the last checkpoint has to be reloaded manually. (I also encountered a bug where loading the last checkpoint was broken and resulted in a grey screen while gameplay still seemed to work. Going through the main menu to reload worked fine though.)
The level design is punishing at times, with climbing sections over multiple levels with the possibility to fall down all of them and have to reclimb them. This is made worse by adding time-based jump boosters (pads) which do not accept any pre-hit leniency, so jump has to be pressed at or after hitting them. A section as described is what ultimately made me give up and stop playing.
All in all I found the visuals interesting, part of the controls snappy, but the experience and gameplay very bland. Widget Satchel may be worthwhile to some players still, but not for me or most.