Cinematic platformer Bionic Bay opens on a scene of a very large egg doing very bad things - easily my third favourite genre of speculative fiction. You awake to a world of tree trunks that twist like viscera and corroded contraptions powered by luminous goop that’s stored in the balls, uh, big glass orbs. A beam of light soon fills your character with newfound vigour, which is a nice moment of triumph in what otherwise feels like a deeply oppressive rust pit, all unsteady platforms and jagged pipes.
It doesn’t take long before you start spotting examples of the reason Bionic Bay went viral earlier this week . Above your head hangs a painstakingly detailed mass of vents and cables, looming lifelike with dust and shadow and history. I stood and stared because I’d seen how the sausage was made, but I like to think I would have lingered longer than usual anyway.
It really is just that impressive. Your guy is much more athletic the average hapless Inside or Limbo trundler, able to pull of leaping aerial rolls, huge dives, and massive jumps. You’ll need them, too.
Laser beams, exploding barrels, and other hazards are rife. It’s much closer to a traditional platformer in this sense, but checkpoints are very frequent. Also, your dude has some powerful ragdoll going on, so it’s also just very entertaining to watch him get blasted across the screen into walls.
Soon, you’ll get a little gizmo that lets you swap places with environmental objects, opening the game up to cle.