Supraland

A mix between Portal, Zelda and Metroid. Explore, find secret upgrades, solve puzzles, beat up monsters, find new abilities that help you reach new places.

Remember playing in the garden with your tiny action figures, be they army men, Micro Machines, dolls etc, imagining what it would be like to be that small, climbing up mountainous pebbles, getting lost in a forest of grass, making a home in a matchbox. In Supraland you get to be that tiny person, and the fun only starts there.

Here is what developer (yes this game was made by one person!) has to say about the game:

Supraland is a First-Person Metroidvania Puzzle game. The main sources of inspiration are Zelda, Metroid and Portal.Supraland assumes that you are intelligent and lets you play independently. The story is minimal, gives you an overarching goal to pursue, and then sets you free. Playtime: ~15-30h

- Metroidvania -

You explore a large interconnected world in which most ways are at first unpassable until you find new abilities to overcome those obstacles. A cornerstone of Supraland's design was to create abilities that are so versatile, they will keep on surprising you by how many different usages they have. If you combine your abilities, the possibilities become even bigger.

- Exploration -

Most of the game is about exploring the sandbox world to track down secrets. Often you will think you are about to get out of bounds and beat the level designer, but right there is a chest waiting for you with a very rewarding upgrade. Supraland respects your lifetime and doesn't bloat the playtime with unlimited no-brainer collectibles.

- Puzzle Design -

The deeper you get into the game the more you will be facing creative puzzles you've never seen anywhere before, encouraging you to stop and think about what abilities you have and how you can use them in yet another way. Puzzle types that I already knew from other games were immediately rejected in the design process. And it's important to me that once you understand the idea behind a puzzle, you can pretty much immediately solve it instead of having to go through a cumbersome, frustrating execution.

- Fighting -

The fighting mechanics are inspired by old-school, fast-paced shooter games like Unreal, Doom and Quake, encouraging high-speed strafing and jumping while throwing shot after shot at hordes of charging enemies without ever having to worry about weapons reloading.

There is also a free Demo available for you to try out game yourself and see if the developer delivers on the claimed features. In my opinion he does, I thoroughly enjoyed my time in the game, enjoying the setting and how the puzzles fit naturally into the exploration of the world. An hour flew by before I reached the end point of the demo, and I was left wanting more.

The game is a mere R130 on the Steam store and well worth it in my (and other's) opinion.