Solid Donkey Kong Country clone that also does a couple unique things to stand apart. Small issue is that if you don't already know from prior Donkey Kong experience that you can jump mid-air after rolling off a cliff, that one enemy in the waterfall level is absolutely not enough to teach you about it (but then again, I don't think that specific maneuver is required). Another issue is that the bramble level (unlocked after getting 100%) is WAY too much of a difficulty spike that also simultaneously requires you to learn new mechanics and pull them off with precision; I actually gave up because I was convinced a certain part of the level wasn't working right. Still, the rest of the demo was enjoyable, and the devs did promise to build up to that level of difficulty better, for what it's worth.

Once you get past the tutorial, the entire demo consists of just four very short levels, like <1 minute short (and there are some story moments like a choice that you can immediately go back and change to unlock the other path). Those levels were fine, though.

Not much platforming in this platformer at first, and it's easy to forget you can double-jump off of certain projectiles by the time you first need to do it (and lockdown/enemy-wave rooms are always a pet peeve of mine), but the demo does pick up a bit afterward. Fine for free, but not sure I'd pay for a full game of this.

This one leans a bit too far towards atmospheric hallways, but when it does have some actual platformer challenge, it's not half bad.

The game has a bad tendency to put optional items in areas you either can't reach or won't learn how to reach until later (including requiring items that aren't in the demo), but the level design is okay and the bullet-controlling gimmick is pretty fun. Side note: apparently, they redubbed the voices from the original anime, yet the voice acting here is kinda bad.

Decent platforming challenge and backtracking that is actually meaningfully different when going the other way. Only real issue is that jumping felt slightly too quick and ball-form jumping could be a bit finicky sometimes.

Enemy attacks can be iffy, but other than that, the level design is okay, even when taking account branching/looping paths when you need to look for collectibles to progress.

Despite what its description might lead you to believe, the game is actually an open-world take on the Super Meat Boy formula, and you never NEED to use the death platforms despite them being the main selling point (with the game even having a dedicated suicide button so you can make mid-air platforms). Level design also isn't too bad, though checkpoints might be a bit too far apart.

Despite only having two enemy types in the whole demo, the game still manages to have solid Metroidvania level design and fair challenges. It did bother me that enemies could only be stunned, not killed, and a couple lines of text could use some clarification, but it's still enjoyable overall.

Jumping physics feel a bit off in this Celeste clone, but it doesn't take long to get used to it. After a bit, you'll get the ability to grapple blocks, but the game never tells you it won't work on single-tile platforms, which threw me off, but overall, it's worth trying the demo since it's free.

The limited ammo/reloading mechanic and the Dark-Souls-style "hold button for long enough to use healing item" mechanic are two of my biggest pet peeves in all of gaming, but the level design is solid enough that I can recommend this free demo in spite of that. It also bothered me that this metroidvania demo blocks off content several rooms from the nearest save point, meaning when the full game comes out, you'd have to re-retraverse those rooms.

Level design is decent, but the hub you access the levels from is a very open, very empty metroidvania, with only one level per large room (and some of those levels are locked because it's a demo, so you just have to keep wandering forward until you find an unlocked one). Plus, you can't fast-travel to unbeaten levels; you can only go to designated fast-travel spots that are quite a ways away from each other. That'd be one thing if this were an actual metroidvania, but this is really just a bloated hub world. Also, I couldn't get the turn-things-pink item to work.

Oh, and the game never makes it clear which spikes you can pogo off of and which you can't. You just have to figure out on your own that some spikes can be pogo'd off of.

This fixes practically every problem I had with the first game: seesaws stop before they get too vertical (and the game won't suddenly drop a box on them to screw you over), levels have fast-travel points so you don't have to retraverse the whole stage to get a collectible you missed, bosses don't make you pointlessly wait for no reason nor do they have bloated health bars, and you have a map screen that shows exactly where each collectible is, so you have a better idea of how to reach them. My only real issues are that the map doesn't pause the game (you have to pause first and then bring up the map if you don't want to be cheap-shotted) and that using a fast-travel point doesn't bring up said map to show where you're going; you just have to go by the text description and your own memory of the level. Still though, highly recommend this one. Say hi if you read this.

The first level here is rather flat and dull, but the outer-space ship level picks things up quite a bit.

The first, second, and fourth levels aren't too bad, but the third level has a darkness gimmick and also requires abnormal precision for getting below underwater spike pillars. Checkpoints could also stand to be closer together.

Nice little platformer, though you do get a new power every 5 levels, so I'm worried the full game will just be gimmicky and monotonous. For these short 20 levels, though, it's fine (though the last level required some tight timing).

Despite the tag, the demo doesn't really have any puzzle-solving going on, but maybe that's for the best since the action-platforming is pretty good. Only issue I had is that the lighting changes at the end, making it hard to see the ropes you need to shoot.

Controls and level design are okay, but I'm really not a fan of how you have to beat earlier levels fast enough to unlock later levels. Even for the demo, I couldn't access the boss fight at the end until I went back and shaved a minute off my previous times in the first two levels, so I'm not exactly looking forward to the full game.

It's mostly boss fights with SHMUP-inspired bullet patterns, but their attacks are varied and rather fair. The last boss in the demo was quite a difficulty spike, though.

Attacking forces your character to be completely stationary, including causing moving platforms to move out from under you. However, there's never a situation where you'd really benefit from doing this, and the rest of the game is designed fairly well.

Decent SHMUP/Bullet Hell, but there's only one level, and the boss fight was pretty damage-spongy (and the dev would only "consider" reducing its HP). Also, apparently, 60% of the full game is going to be Adventure-Game-style exploration and riddle-solving, and this is not represented in the demo AT ALL; it starts at the beginning of the Bullet Hell level and ends shortly after you beat the boss. Not promising, but at least the demo itself is still fun to play.

The demo has one level that's pretty fun to go through, but it also very blatantly has a lives and credits system, so as far as the full game's concerned, you might be better off emulating the PSP port so you can use savestates to avoid being sent back to the beginning of the game on game over. I hate how so many otherwise-well-made SHMUPs have limited continues.

A twinstick-shooter where you can only move via gun recoil (and a dash move). It starts off kinda bland, but the demo does have some levels that don't make you kill all the enemies to progress, and I was having some fun by the end.

Once again, the single available level is fun, but the game has a lives system despite having zero reason for one since it already sends you back to a checkpoint when you die! Forcing progress loss beyond that is just pointlessly punitive.

Unlike the dev's previous demo, this doesn't let you play any of the levels; you only have access to a 5-minute "caravan" mode where bosses appear rather frequently. What's available is very well made and polished, though.

A rare example of an arcade-style SHMUP that saves your progress between levels! Unfortunately, enemy waves are randomly selected, so sometimes you'll breeze to the boss with no trouble, and other times you'll lose all your lives just a couple waves in (and yeah, again with the lives system, but at least you only restart the level).

You know how, when a lazy dev is tasked with converting mouse input to a controller, they'll just make it so you drag a cursor around the screen with the control stick? This game's default controls make you do that even when you're using keyboard/mouse! It's a mindbogglingly counterproductive decision, and the dev knows that many people would hate it since there's an option to switch so that the arrow keys/right stick snap your reticle between the boss's weak points instead (surprisingly no option to map it to the freaking mouse, though!). Once that option is enabled, though, the game is pretty fun with some tough bullet patterns.

A pretty fun bullet hell where you teleport through bullets and hazards to power up your own shots. Story is kinda weird, but maybe it'd be funnier if you knew about 1800s Japanese history. Only three levels in this demo, but they're well made.

Pretty tricky puzzles, though your magic vision doesn't always show which obstacles are connected to which switches because those icons can still somehow be blocked by other stuff sometimes.

The gimmick here is that there are arrow tiles on the ground that enable/disable your ability to move in certain directions, and they even affect other blocks so you can move them on their own instead of pushing them. No music, weirdly enough.

The main levels in the demo were kinda boring, but the postgame levels were a bit tricky.

The NPC moves in the opposite direction as you, and you have to bait him to the goal. There's no undo mechanic, but at least the puzzles aren't that long.

You can pick up cards on the ground to increase your stats, but enemies can do the same thing, so you have to figure out which cards you can allow them to take and which route you need to bait them towards to kill all enemies.

More decent puzzles, though the difficulty curve is a bit off since 5-1 is harder than any level in world 6.

The puzzles are pretty easy at first since you're just clicking and dragging tiles, but they start to get a bit tricky near the end of the demo.

The entire first world is quite easy, but the six available levels for worlds 2 and 3 are fairly challenging (except 3-3; that one went back to being fairly easy).

An Advance Wars clone with some minor differences here and there, like tanks costing more or injured units still dealing 10 damage to enemy properties. I didn't like how planes couldn't attack; they can only "spot" units to decrease their defense slightly. However, I REALLY didn't like how the demo doesn't save, because it meant I lost multiple levels of progress when I went to take a break, so consider this recommendation tentative as I didn't actually finish the demo.