Grappling Hook

It’s hard for indie games to get attention in today’s saturated market where games that cost more than a bag of peanuts gets hate-mailed into oblivion. Therefore we need to stick together, and do a bit of cross-promotion now and then.

Me and Christian of SpeedRunGames made a deal: I review his game, he reviews mine.

Now, don’t think I am going to go easy on him just because we have a deal, that would make it all pointless and ruin everyone’s day. So let’s get on with the review of Grappling Hook.

In one sentence: It’s like Portal, but with a grapple gun instead of a portal gun.

Now that’s not bad, Portal is in my mind one of the best games ever made. Enough with the portals, this is about grappling.

You get a grappling gun, and with that you can pull yourself towards green surfaces with blinding speed from far away. If you release the trigger while traveling in this manner, your momentum will keep you going. Kind of like a human rail gun, first a large pulling force and then no force at all. Not even friction.

During the level, you collect access codes. When all access codes are collected, the level can be won by entering the portal at the end of it.

Around this mechanic Christian has constructed levels of varying cleverness, where some are ingenious and some are just frustrating. Don’t fret though, just do the frustrating ones and you’ll have fun again in the next level.

Good points:

• Innovative puzzler
• High velocities
• Frequent save points

Bad points:

• The graphics (programmer art)
• Too much jumping on platforms (more puzzling, less timing please)
• Limited green surfaces (I’d wish you could lash onto anything, except red surfaces, and then design levels around that)

Anyway, the good points are pretty strong so go try the free demo now: Grappling Hook Demo