nimbus
i was pretty excited to see that the indie royale launch bundle actually included two games i wanted. nimbus is one of those two, and now that i’ve had the chance to play more than just the demo i know i was right to want it.
it does have some minor issues of course, but not the kind that affect you while actually playing the game. it didn’t detect my resolution but did let me select it in options, which only matters once. keyboard controls aren’t customizable which i’m generally against, but when you consider that you play with the arrow keys and use ctrl to restart the level or backspace / esc to go back to the map it becomes less of an issue. it does feel designed for a controller though, and would probably benefit from analog turning controls. the map would be easier to use if it showed your ship so you’d know where you are in addition to centering on the currently-selected level.
it starts you off with a short bit of story, which you access from the map in such a way that you expect the first level. a big eyeball ship abducts the pink ship (a princess? your girlfriend?) and files off, so then you do too. then you’re back at the map. a little strange, but okay. then you go off to play through the game and the story just sits there waiting for you to get to the last level, where i honestly don’t even remember if there was any more story.
what nimbus really has going for it is that it’s a lot of fun to play. your only means of propelling yourself is to use the environment, so mostly you navigate to the next useful thing. of course there are (plenty of) spikes and other dangers (including getting yourself stranded) to make it more interesting. sometimes figuring out what to do takes a while, and then sometimes actually pulling it off can take even longer.
there’s a good variety of new things to interact with as the game progresses as well, which keeps it fresh and interesting. you also unlock new ships and trails as you go. as far as i can tell, these only affect the look of the game. the graphics are bright and colorful and a little cartoony in a way that adds to the fun. the music and sound effects fit well but didn’t stand out as particularly good, bad, or even memorable.
while nimbus is a single-player game, it does include leaderboards and achievements so you can compare progress with a friend and / or all players. this makes it sort of like a racing game since you can try for a shorter time if you like. a few of the achievements are based on getting a pretty good time — the one i’ve tried for is about a second faster than i have been able to manage.
unlocks (trails especially) are hard to tell what’s new. when you collect enough coins it will tell you that a new ship / trail has been unlocked and how to pick which ones you’re using, but many times when i unlocked a trail it didn’t look like there was anything new. most trails come in six or so colors, so adding the yellow trail in a style where i already had white could easily go unnoticed.
nimbus is regularly priced at $10 and i put in 7 hours to beat it on easy, including the christmas levels and a couple junkyard levels. i’d recommend trying it out for $5 or less.