Introduction
In Spinch you are going to learn exactly what not to do with your babies. You are a colorless creature that lives in a world where colors are hunting you and they really want your babies! This is a difficult old school platformer where you need to jump and dash through levels while avoiding the colors that want to kill you. The game has some really difficult levels but also some levels that can be completed easily. For the people that love some challenge, there are Steam achievements that will make you do the cringe! This game is a heaven for no-hit runners as there is a Steam achievement where you need to complete all the six worlds without getting hit! In each level, you will need to collect three babies except in the last world. I did so long overworld six it was insane. I really felt insanity coming while I kept trying to complete a level. If someone can complete world six without getting hit, I would need to put them on a pedestal while praising the sun.
It is important to collect all the babies even though it can be really hard to find them sometimes. You are going to need your babies in the future, I will let you know why in the gameplay section. I will tease one thing, putting your babies in a cannon and firing them is not the way you should treat babies. You should also not drop them from a high spot and hope someone will catch them. The game is smaller than I had expected but the difficulty will make the game longer.
What did I think of Spinch before playing?
I saw that the developer was looking for reviewers and it was open for key requesting thus I went to the Steam page and looked up what the game is about.
I like platformer games so I was interested immediately, the game advertises with high difficulty which attracted me as well. The footage I saw was a weird creature running around in colorful worlds.
The worlds looked very alive and made me think of disco. I also noticed that the colors hurt the little creature and this made me curious.
The premise is that you need to save your babies from the colors since the colors are looking for a snack, and you will need to use your babies to shoot giant bosses.
This looked so funny and weird with the premise of a high difficulty that I decided to put in a request for a copy of their game Spinch, I also quickly learned the creatures are called Spinch.
I installed the game and booted it up and quickly encountered the tutorial and where I saw some weird creatures that looked like a walking egg. These are the cousins of the Spinch family.
Story
The story starts with the Spinch parent walking to his babies who are just playing and doing just the normal everyday life stuff. When the Spinch family reunites they get attacked suddenly by a giant color monster! The Spinch parent is spared because he is not tasty and the parent tastes like rubber. The giant color monster wants to feed the babies to many enemies and the Spinch parent will need to save all the babies before it is too late! The Spinch Parent will travel first to Astral Island and fights the colored beasts and woke worms to save the babies. At the end of Astral Island, the Spinch family encounters a color monster that can’t be defeated by normal means. The Spinch parent finds a cannon and gets an idea! He puts the Spinch babies in the cannon and fires them at the color monster. After the color monster is defeated it seems the adventure is over and everyone is safe but then the giant color monster that kidnapped the babies in the beginning attacks and takes the babies again. The Spinch parent follows the giant color monster into space, the world of the star children.
The Spinch parent travels across the skies with many new dangers that were not in the Astral Islands, Colored beasts that seem immune to being defeated! The Spinch parent also needs help from the star children to open doors and find the babies. After finding all the babies another colored beast is waiting to eat the babies but shooting him with the cannon seems to do the trick. Before the Spinch family can rejoice the babies get taken again by the giant colored monster into a new land to get fed to the color monster. The Spinch parent follows the giant colored monster once again to save his babies. (Does this remind anyone of the movie Taken 1,2 and 3 with Liam Neeson?). The Spinch parent travels to the elevated platforms high in the trees but this is actually lower than space so I guess de-elevated?
The Spinch parents need to deal with many logs and traps that are waiting for him and the birds are also not too friendly. The babies are scattered all over the place but the Spinch parent knows the trick now and rescues them in no time.
When the babies have been rescued another colored beast attacks and the Spinch family manages to defeat it again but once again the giant colored monster takes the babies. The Spinch parent follows the giant monster once again into space but the star children have flooded their space base making the terrain much harder to navigate. The Spinch parent swims his way to victory by saving all the babies in space once again. The Spinch family fights another colored beast with a cannon but you guessed it, the babies get taken again by the giant colored monster but this time to a new place. The frozen lands, can the Spinch parent save the babies for real this time?
The Spinch parent fights his way through the frozen lands with many snowballs and icicles on his path. After rescuing the babies once again the Spinch family fights another colored monster but indeed the giant colored monster attacks again!
The Spinch parent has had it and goes to the lair of the giant colored monster but he is protected by a giant maze with slime blobs that chase the Spinch parent. After navigating the huge maze and saving the babies again the Spinch family fights the giant colored beast to finally get peace. After a massive battle with the giant colored beast, the Spinch family can finally get some rest and peace.
Gameplay
You have three hearts but you can find heart containers for more temporary max health points, this is only for the level where you have collected the heart container. After losing all three health points you will restart at the beginning of the level unless you have found a checkpoint. You have no lives so you will keep respawning until you have completed the level, this can take some time if you are really stuck. At every level you will need to collect three babies. In Spinach you will need to jump and dash a lot to get through the levels while collecting the babies along the way. You can collect cubes at each level and when you collect 50 cubes you will get immunity, this can be used to kill unbeatable enemies or rush through the level. You can also wall kick against the same wall multiple times to get through the levels. All the worlds feature a very different experience with more difficult bosses in each world. Collecting all the babies is very vital, if you fail to collect the babies you will have a difficult time defeating the boss from that world. The babies that you have collected are the ammo for the cannon in the boss fight. If you want extra ammo you can try to find bonus levels in the world, there are two bonus levels to find in each world. To access the bonus levels, you will need to find your cousin in the world that you are currently visiting. When you find your cousin in the level you will unlock a new path on the overworld map, when you visit the bonus level you will need to complete a mini-game. Your cousin will literally start dropping his babies in the hope that you are going to catch them. If you manage to catch 75% of the cousins you will gain a bomb as a reward. You can use this bomb as extra ammo in the boss fight. If you fail to catch the babies you cannot retry the bonus levels as the babies have been dropped to their death, you will literally see them splash into pieces. I should remind you to not drop children in real life.
When you start a fight with the boss fight you will immediately see a dangerous threatening color monster. You will need to load the cannon before you fire at the color monster. After you have loaded the cannon you will need to step on another switch to fire the cannon, the babies need to hit the color monster. If you have unlocked the bombs you will have a total of 14 ammo to shoot at the color monster. The bombs seem to do more damage than the babies, you will need to reload after firing the babies. After firing you need to step on the other switch to reload again. You will need to repeat this process until the color monster is defeated. The last world is one huge level that will be really hard where you need to collect 12 babies in one huge maze with enemies that will instantly kill you.
Sound and Graphics
The sound is good for this game and there are no issues with the sound or sound effects.
The graphics are really important in this game as you are a Spinch without color and the colors are hunting you. The world feels like a huge color disco where everything is flashing. Don’t play this game if you have epilepsy.
The graphics are also painful because touching any color will hurt you. The graphics are psychotic, to say the least.
What did I think after playing Spinch?
Spinch did indeed provide the old school difficulty that it intended to deliver, some of the levels were easy for me but others were harder. The swimming levels were hard and the others were easy enough to rush through.
Most of the time was spent looking for the babies and trying to collect them since I am a completionist. I have managed to collect all the babies and get 100% in Spinch.
I like the graphics and that each world had new backgrounds and enemies to see and defeat. The boss also changed each time which was also great to see.
The thing that broke the game for me was world six, I was literally stuck for more than three hours at one huge level but I didn’t give.
It turns out I am not good at walking upside down in world six, This game only had two obstacles for me. Walking upside down and swimming.
My personal rating before world six was 7.8
My personal rating after world six is 1
World six really drained all the fun in Spinch away for me, it was a death loop of more than three hours I kept trying until I succeeded!
Pros and Cons
Pros
– The graphics and sound are created well in Spinch
– All the worlds look and work differently.
– The game has some difficult levels which are exactly what the game advertises.
– The Spinch family looks cute.
– The boss battles are a unique gameplay element where you need to fire your babies at the boss.
– You are going to learn how to not handle babies in real life.
Cons
– World six was a real slog and broke the game a bit for me, it is supposed to be difficult but I was stuck for three hours.
I loved this game and it was a welcome surprise. I would recommend this game to anyone that is looking for a challenging platformer. Spinch will take you by surprise as you will find yourself in difficult situations.
I give this game a …drumroll…
7.3
You can buy the game here!
I hope you liked reading this review, I hope to see you in the next review.
