An adorable & instantly charming low-stakes collectathon, almost an experiment in using traditional design principles and seeing if the game still works without a fear of failure or hard loss. In my opinion, it absolutely does work with maybe just a few hurdles in design that crop up now and then.

Some people may be instantly turned off by the overly "moe" aesthetic, but I think this actually hits a nice balance of not being overly cutesy in a way that rams it down your throat. Even though the audience of this game isn't really me, I found it to be a relaxing time. It helps too that the controls are pretty tight and offer a lot of flexibility of movement (the Hat in Time connections are more than the cameo), though sometimes I ran into depth/space issues due to the 2.5 D aspect with my character model. I would love casual games to move away from the Animal Crossing/Stardew Valley model and into something more directly interactable like this, so I would highly recommend this as a more passive game to return to now & then.

This is a really lovely, loss stress collectaphon platformer. No enemies, no possibility of death, just doing little things for various animal people to become a "Professional Friend'.

The cast of characters are wonderful and really memorable, with their own characteristics and personalities. As well as some great queer representation.

And all of this is threaded together with a heartwarming story that is befitting a game that is so centered around healthy and positive relationships.

I got this game cuz I thought it was developed by Gears For Breakfast, but it seems like this was more of a Frog Vibes production with a Gears partnership

I won't say I was disappointed with this game, because I read reviews beforehand. And truthfully, I did enjoy the 7 and a half hours I spent with this game. However, I have to be honest and say this is not a "gameplay" game. This is a chill-out game with some repetitive tasks and a somewhat barebones story.

I'll start with what I enjoyed. Gameplay wise, the movement is simple but fluid, and Niko reacts exactly how I expect them to react. Going from point A to point B was always quick and satisfying. I liked a couple of the friend tasks quite a bit, like the Gamer Kid challenges, Little Gabi's flowers, the volleyball challenges, and bringing Louist to Schersal or whatever their names are. The visuals and music were beautiful and lovely, respectively, and the sound effects are maybe some of my favorite I've ever heard. The sprite-work in particular is very well done across all the characters. Playing this game put me in a good mood every time I started it.

The rest of the gameplay was frankly lackluster. Collecting bugs, doing the arcade challenges (all of them were painfully easy), fishing, making graffiti, etc. None of it was bad, and I liked each of them the first time, but by the end you could really feel the repetitiveness. Rather than doing the tasks because I wanted to, I was doing them for completion's sake. And while I said I love the visuals and sprite-work, those have their problems too. I can see what they were going for visually with the Bathhouse level, but I really do not like the end result at all, and 80% of the characters are drawn facing straight forward, making them look like DeviantArt characters put up for auction.

As for what I think is actually bad, I have to mention the hamster ball segments. Thankfully there's only a couple, but the ball controls like a nightmare and the camera is so uncooperative that it was starting to give me a headache. The one where you turn tiny in particular was agony. Other than that, I feel like all my problems were preference-based.

I don't like making the "did I get my money's worth" judgement when I'm done with a game, but I kind of have to here. This game is $25 and I paid full price. I think my money went to a good place, especially because the story is very obviously about an LGBT+ youth running away from home and trying to find a place to be happy and accepted. Assuming the people involved with the creation of this game have any personal experiences similar to that, then I'm happy to have supported them. If not, I'm happy to have supported someone willing to create an entire game about a pertinent issue anyways. BUT, as a game, I really can't say I got $25 worth of enjoyment out of it. I spent $11 on Journey and played it for 1 hour and 33 minutes, but the experience I got was worth far more than I paid. If I got that same level of experience here, I wouldn't even bring up the price at all, but I just didn't. I got the level of experience I usually get from an $8-10 game. And that's with 100%ing the game, which most likely added a good 2-3 hours of playtime by itself. I won't be missing the money I spent per-say, but I definitely thought about the price multiple times.

All-in-all, a good experience. The relaxing feel and charming vibe outweighed the negatives fairly easily, but I can't give it higher than a 3.5/5. Either way, glad I played it

Cute little game! The collectathon gameplay may be simplistic and a bit repetitive, but it works great for a little 4 hour experience. The art style is amazing, and I love the Paper Mario-esque aesthetic with 2D characters in a 3D space.
What I was not expecting at all, was the subtle storytelling about a nonbinary youth looking for acceptance in the world. I found myself caring for Niko more and more as the game went on, as I learned more about them. I love how it was handled.
I think asking for $25 for this is a bit much, but this is absolutely worth picking up when it's on sale, it's a great cozy little time.

This is very much not a 3D platformer focused on challenging platforming and a versatile moveset, but instead focused on some light puzzle solving, interacting with some cute NPCs, and exploring colorful little spaces while the backstory of the main character slowly emerges. I think after I understood that, I was able to enjoy the game more. It's fairly rough, which makes sense since this is the first game from a small studio, and I encountered a handful of glitches, some that required resetting the game. The controls for going through menus are also pretty weird (can't be changed), and there isn't an option to invert the camera which really didn't help the bad first impression I had with this game. But it's clearly made by people who care, and I hope they're able to make something a little more ambitious and with more polish behind it someday.

This is one of a few games which evoked similar feelings to A Short Hike or Toem, which is a welcome treat. Having 2D characters in a 3D world allows for excellent expressiveness that might be more challenging to capture on an indie budget with 3D models. Bright colors and charming characters, with some decent platforming all make this game a wholesome and relaxing playthrough. There is some repetition in the tasks as the game continues, and some jankiness pervades (especially with camera control in the hamster wheel), but this didn't strongly detract from the game's charm.

This game is okay. You play as Niko, a non-binary kid who possibly has some trouble at home because of their gender identity. The game never really specifies why Niko's mom has the unclear caring/judgmental traits towards them. Because of those problems, Niko leaves home and now needs cash, so they go on to be a professional friend for different animals in the islands of a cozy archipelago.

This is an easy platformer that plays similarly to A Hat in Time, although there is no combat and little stakes. You don't die for falling in the water, and there are no lasers or obstructions that damage you. The game is mostly about collecting stuff and doing little sidequests that play like minigames.

Although the islands are varied enough, the minigames repeat throughout the game. You mostly play the same minigames in different iterations, and each level also has some exclusive minigames.

It plays out like a less focused version of A Short Hike, comprised of 5 short hikes or so.

If you go all the way through, it isn't an experience that you'll write home about, but that's okay. It's an okay game. I didn't feel disappointed by it, I just felt that it wasn't engaging for long sessions of play. Played as intended, as an hour-long distraction to relax from having worked, it's actually a nice experience. It looks good and sounds good too.

both very much for me yet so overboard with the pandering-to-excessively-online-people that I quickly started to hate it.
the gameplay is fun and the world is colorful. I ABSOLUTELY NEED more games with great movement that are entirely about chatting with neat characters without any extra systems or challenges that get in the way.
my problem is how elbow-nudgingly aware the presentation felt. you make friends with furries! you collect cassette tapes! there's a Tamagotchi you can play with! the coins say "MEOW! MEOW!"! the shipping container island is filled with default cubes (us silly game developers)! one of the cute characters is actually DARK!!
I found the fox who had four screens of Discord open and closed the game.
even with the pronounced spotlight on the precious characters and pastel world, the game has moments where it gets in the way of itself being able to do so. the helper frog box that appeared in the corner stating that I seemed to be stuck when I was just exploring the island on my own terms was notable, but the more prevalent hiccup was with camera angles during dialogue. the camera during gameplay is fantastic and never gave me an awkward view, but so many times when I talked to a character did the camera flip around to some weird shot where characters were covering each other and I couldn't clearly see what I thought the game was touting as its strongest selling point.
if you love this game, I totally get it; I know there's an ever so slightly different version of myself that does too.

REALLY fun and REALLY cute. A Hat in Time is one of my favorite games of all time, so naturally, I was bound to pick up the latest title from Gears for Breakfast. At first, I wasn't really loving it. I was it expecting it to be more of a 3d platformer collectathon, and I mean it kinda is? But its way more cozy, and relaxed, and just kinda walking around and talking and doing cute little tasks. I was disappointed at first, but it soon really grew on me. The art, the dialogue, the different settings, are all really cute! There's some genuine emotion here too, and it's just overall really pleasant and great. Highly recommend!

hapy :D

here comes niko is pure, unbridled joy. it is awesome. the animals? adorable. the quests? fun. i love niko. YOU love niko. we ALL love niko.

here she comes!!!!!!

A basic game that fits it's description; being for tired people.
Compared to Hat in Time, this game isn't nearly as good, and even though I haven't finished I don't think there's anything that will be added later in my playthrough that will change my mind.
It's simple and repetitive, it's a great game if you just want something simple and cute to kill some time, and what little story there is does seem heartfelt.
It could have benefited greatly from just a bit more variety, i don't think the simple puzzles are bad, but you can make more unique puzzles while still staying simple at the same time. The game kinda feels like GfB was just trying to test stuff out, which is fine! Not every game can be a huge thing and I would rather smaller games to test stuff that can eventually lead to another amazing game in the future.

TLDR: If you like this, play Hat in Time. If you've played Hat in Time, go ahead and play this too, it's still fun if you just want something simple.

not only is this game absolutely adorable but it's also a TON of fun!! i wasn't expecting to enjoy this as much as i did but it would easily be my favourite game if it were longer. the dialogue is charming, the character designs are adorable and the little tasks are very enjoyable!

my only gripe is the game is very buggy. there's several areas of the map where various parts of the level will flicker in and out of existence and the bathhouse, although the prettiest level in the game, is full of odd graphical bugs involving random flashes of lighting. i also had one moment where i was afk and left the game running in the background and when i came back, i'd somehow fallen inside of a rock with no way to get out?? that was weird lol.