game 2 of my anxiety saga (game 3 was dawntrail)

played this at what was arguably the peak of my anxiety episode. fucking hell it would be extremely dumb of me if i thought about games solely on their fun factor wouldn't it? i don't think i had fun even once, no actually i don't think i want to ever see this game in front of me ever again some horrible terrible memories have been ingrained into it and the aesthetics and how aggressive it was did not help. this was the textbook definition of playing the wrong game at the wrong time (a notion i'm always surprised at how barely i see people take it into account when they hate something, i guess people don't like thinking it could be an issue with them and not the game itself)

fun is a feeling, it's as much of a feeling as dread is, and happiness, and understanding and anger, it's not indicative of quality no, Reggie is wrong. actually he was always wrong he was a CEO and a spokesperson why would he ever be right. i feel stupid it took me so long to understand this.

there's no objectivity in art, what you get is dialogue. not in a "art needs to teach" way no only the most insufferable unimaginative people ever think that art needs to teach, when art itself is devoid of "need" it only "is", it speaks to the void and some willing people listen. children of the sun had things to say and i like a lot of them, even though i didn't have fun, even though this was probably the worst experience i've ever had with a videogame and it was absolutely not the game's fault. sometimes this just happens, whatever score i'm giving only pertains to me it only makes sense to me and it's not for anyone else. people say i'm a good listener and maybe that's why i like games so much, i like listening to what 1 or 400 people have to say to me, and a lot of the time it's interesting stuff!

Vibe de zinzin; les visuels, l'audio, l'alternace des passages histoire/gameplay et la gimmick centrale donnent vraiment le jeu de rêve pour le moi ado edgy de 16 ans. Dommage qu'il y ait que ça.
Sous la surface, le jeu essaye d'hybrider puzzle et shooter et finit par réussir aucun des deux. Quand on arrive pas a trouver la "solution", c'est juste que le jeu est pas lisible et qu'on arrive pas à trouver un ennemi ou un passage. Quand on rate un tir, c'est parce que le système de visée rend certains tirs ultra pénibles et frustrants à exécuter.
Le mec qui a décidé que tous les contrôles du jeu devraient être sur la souris n'a jamais lancé un jeu vidéo je vois pas comment c'est possible de faire ce choix.
Pas fini le jeu du coup

A puzzle-shooter about violence, revenge, and how cool it is to psychically control a bullet. It's a very aggressive and beautiful game, both aesthetically and mechanically.

If you ignore the aesthetics, it's mechanically very fun! You chain your bullets between different targets (enemies, explosives, random optional points) to make a high-scoring ballet of violence.

When you bring the aesthetics back in, it's a bit hard to stomach. Deranged feels like an unfair term to use, but... that is SORT OF what it feels like. The revenge that the player character is enacting is justified, at least as its narratively presented. But the way it's shown and the way the player character seems to process it is joyless, and if you play it like a leaderboard game to get some degree of mastery it can be hard to stomach. But shouldn't all violent score attack games feel that way? Or violent video games in general?

I don't know, this is the first game in a long time where I've truly felt as though the violence I was committing wasn't something I could retain any legitimate joy from. Maybe that should be a more common feeling expressed in games.

Pretty good, but maybe a bit too short.

I loved the crunchy, oppressive sound and visuals that fits the theme of the game perfectly: a madman hell-bent on killing everyone in a cult out of revenge.

I'm torn on the gameplay but ultimately I think it gets the idea across without overstaying its welcome. I think if there were too many more levels it would get pretty boring. The three power ups are pretty well-explored by the end of the game, there really isn't much more you can do with them.

Worth it on sale, full price, I'm not sure

Positive:
Creative puzzles, some of then take me a while to get through, but with patience I finished the game in a short time (2 and a half hours to be exact).
I love the graphics, the cutscenes, and actual gameplay.
The game encourage you to play again for the trophies or beat your high score, for me the score doesn't matter, but cannot say that I tried to get as many trophies as possible (give it up for now, maybe I return again).
Could be better:
The sounds and music are good, but I think they could be better, but they still fit the atmosphere.
Negative:
Some gameplay mechanics, like armored enemies, are not intuitive. Lose the count on how many levels I have failed because of a little distance and not killing those guys. A little mark on the kill distance would be nice.

A unique puzzle/action game that balances the genres well. The first few attempt at each level tend to end up being "scouting" runs to find and mark targets, plan routes, and experiment. Once you've picked a strategy, simply executing it fast and efficiently becomes a challenge itself, especially toward the later levels. The mechanics work well and both "phases" of each level were fun and interesting in their own ways. The story is quite dark (though much of it is left to interpretation) and I wasn't terribly fond of it, but it works. Overall a short but fun experience.

I enjoyed my time with this game well enough. Not a huge fan of the scoreboard aspect, don't really like rushing through puzzles.

My big gripe is that I never could quite get a handle exactly how much distance I needed with to kill the armoured enemies. My general preference is that tools should have a level of expressiveness to them, and while your other telekinetic abilities fit this, the power shot was more like "use this to kill that specific enemy and hope you gave yourself enough distance".

O jogo tem uma premissa muito boa, onde você tem 1 bala no seu rifle e seu objetivo é se vingar do culto que destruiu sua vida. Para isso, você deve usar seus poderes psíquicos para guiar a bala e estourar a cabeça de todos os integrantes do culto, até a fase final onde você aniquila o seu líder. O estilo artístico transmite perfeitamente o estado de perturbação mental em que a protagonista se encontra.

Cada fase é uma espécie de quebra-cabeça, com variados tipos de cultistas que devem ser derrotados com uma habilidade específica para cada um. Isso diversifica a jogabilidade, fazendo com que o jogador nunca tenha aquela sensação de que está fazendo sempre as mesmas fases com uma ou outra repaginada. Tudo bem que o jogo é curto, mas tem muito jogo por aí que mesmo sendo curto, dá um certo cansaço de jogar depois de umas 3 ou 4 fases. Esse é diferente.

O único problema que tive com o jogo é que a lore poderia ter sido evoluída para além das cutscenes no início de algumas fases e final do jogo. Não que esteja ruim, tanto que o suspense criado até finalmente matar o líder do culto na fase final deixou tudo bem atmosférico. Mas umas fases meio esquisitas que apareceram ocasionalmente durante o jogo (que não consistiam em apenas matar os cultistas) deram a entender que a história iria trazer impactos significativos para a jogabilidade.

De toda forma, não vai ser isso que vai me fazer julgar o primeiro trabalho de um desenvolvedor indie com escassez de recursos. O jogo é bem polido, o level design casa muito bem com as mecânicas, estilo visual é muito perturbado (num bom sentido), e vai garantir umas boas horinhas de diversão pra quem gosta de jogos de quebra-cabeças.

The vibes and aesthetic are pretty phenomenal. For some reason I thought it was about hunting vampires but no it's a cult, makes sense honestly I don't know why vampires would be "Children of the Sun"

Uhh, so gameplay is pretty unique, much more a puzzle game than a shooter, has unique mechanics it keeps introducing the more you go so the gameplay's always evolving. Art and music, like I was saying at the start, perfect, edgy vibes. The story is told through these chaotic stylized flashbacks, I imagine they're what it feels like to be in our dear insane protagonist's head.

I suppose my biggest gripe about this game is many levels have a specific extra challenge. And you always get a vague hint about what it is. My complaint is that some are so vague I had to google what to actually do, and then some are not only vague but super annoying to pull off, so I also had to watch/read a guide to help with that. I found looking things up and just those weirder challenges in general super frustrating and brought it my enjoyment down. But I admit this is primarily a 'me' problem, I could've avoided the guides and the annoying challenges but I didn't. What did happen is I was left annoyed instead of satisfied at solving the puzzles, and that bumps the game down a bit for me.

Still pretty good tho, if you want a nice and short puzzle experience about sniping crazy cultists, this is a great pick.

You know what a sign of a good game is? I wanted to go back and pull my scores higher, as well as hit the rest of the optional objectives, because that rush of pulling some serious shenanigans on dirty cultists with a big ole sniper bullet and some revenge-filled ingenuity is a rip-roarin’ way to burn a couple hours. With its syrupy, saturated presentation and some real smart puzzle gunplay, it’s easy to angle our bullet past Children of the Sun’s misfires to combo for a few hours of pure delight.

Heavily stylized puzzle game where you're a teenager (maybe young woman?) coming back to kill the cult that stole your youth. You have telekinetic powers and play each level by firing a single bullet in closed Hitman-style environments and then plotting the path of the bullet in first-person from target to target. You also get more powers that grant more freedom over how you direct the bullet's path. Super clever, pretty fun. Can get a little trial and error-y at times but it's a kind of trial and error that feels pretty good. Not super long, probably 4-6 hours depending on how good at it you are.

Just a really nice (if grim) little game published by Devolver.