There’s nothing higher than a great grappling hook, I reckon. Titanfall 2 knew it, Halo Infinite found it, each Spider-Man recreation lives or dies based mostly on how good its arachnid-flavoured rope feels to fling.
Launched this week, Grapple Canine is a captivating platformer a couple of hook-swinging pooch—and boy, if that hook is not an absolute delight. I have been following this mutt for a while now, watching developer Joseph Gribbin tweak and tinker on the Sport Boy Superior (GBA) flavoured puzzle platformer for the previous 12 months or so.
Not like the looser, freeflying hooks of Titanfall or Halo, Grapple Canine’s hook is a really deliberate factor. It might probably solely be fired straight up or at 45 levels both means. You may’t fly in full circles, both, along with your swing stopping at 90 levels either side. It is limiting, however deliberately so to open up the sport’s high-flying platforming.
However Grapple Canine’s grappling hook has that crucial factor: momentum. Construct up a great swing and you may correctly yeet your self throughout a stage, exiting at a low angle for optimum velocity as you sure between hookable surfaces. Exiting a swing at the next angle offers you a slower velocity however extra management, letting you deal with extra precision climbs.
Grappling is not the one trick Grapple Canine has in its pack, thoughts. I discussed a GBA styling to the sport earlier, and I am unable to stress sufficient how exhausting that holds. There is a distinct model of pixel artwork carried by Nintendo’s handheld—all chunky, and vibrant with daring outlines—and Grapple Canine’s funky MIDI soundtrack goes so exhausting it may’ve been lifted from any of the Sonic Advance video games.
Mechanically, too, Grapple Canine is a recreation that feels prefer it’d slot proper in alongside the Gameboy’s greatest—a good platformer with a captivating forged that does one factor rather well: pushing that mechanic to its restrict and exploring it in inventive new methods.
Grapple Canine is not excellent. Absolutely the deliberateness of that hook and your jumps means you may usually fail jumps that really feel inside your attain, and I desperately want there was multiple music loop per world. But it surely feels just like the kinda recreation you’d hear in passing dialog about hidden previous gems, a mid-00s platformer you’d by no means heard of that discovered a cult following past the borders of Sonic or Mario.
Grapple Canine is out at present on Steam.
