If you’ve ever wondered why I explain each game’s controls, it’s because of games like Astrogon that don’t have standard left/right movement. In that game, tapping left/right has your character jump in that direction, in a very specific arc. Plus, that’s the extent of your control over your character, so if you don’t time your movements exactly right, you’ll just barely brush against a hazard and die. Needless to say, I stopped playing that game not long into world 2.

Still, despite all the bad free games I play, I always come across a game like this one that reminds me they can be just as good as paid games and that my decision to stop buying games all those years ago was the right decision.

• Romino's Adventure
  

  4 hours playtime

  12 of 37 achievements but BLAEO says none exist

Platformer. Standard left/right movement and jump, with the X button letting you pick up and place tetronimos. Holding X while carrying a tetronimo will highlight the spot it’ll be placed if you let go in that moment, so moving while holding the button has the highlighted spot move with you.

Level design is pretty good. The first few levels do an amazing job at teaching you some of the game’s more unexpected mechanics through level design alone, which is quite impressive. A few of the later introductions could’ve benefitted from a redesign, though, like the level that’s supposed to teach you that crabs can hit switches: the first switch in the level has a tetronimo placed on it that prevents the crab from reaching and pressing it, so you just kinda have to guess that’s what the crab can do before moving the tetronimo out of its way. The game also keeps introducing obstacles as the game progresses, and they kinda get abandoned until the last couple worlds, so it does take a bit for the difficulty curve to start ramping up (world 6 was when I first felt challenged). The puzzle elements are pretty light, so most of the challenge is from making tricky jumps, though there were a few times where I had to stop and think for a few seconds.

My only major issue is that the final level has a darkness gimmick, where you can only see around yourself and other tetrominos, so it’s just a bunch of trial and error to see where the death-puddles are and which switch toggles which blocks.

That said, overall, it’s not bad for a free game. I recommend it.