Retro games never get old, which is ironic if you think about it. No matter how many pixel-art throwbacks to the ‘90s we play, we’re always hungry for more.
That’s why we’re pleased to report that The Puppeteer, the debut project from indie developer Danny Martin, has now arrived on Steam.
As you’ve probably already gathered from the screenshots, it’s a retro game through and through, with pixel-art visuals, blocky backgrounds, and a classic top-down perspective.
But, like all good retro games, it introduces a couple of new ideas to keep things fresh.
Gameplay-wise, The Puppeteer is an action-adventure RPG that sees you traversing various environments in search of the titular Puppeteer.
You’re playing as Novi, an adventurer who answers a distress call about an arch mischief-maker, who is using his dark magic to turn people into mindless zombies called “gears”.
These zomboid gears are running amok in five different regions, and it’s your job to halt their spread before confronting the Puppeteer himself in his fortress—which is called the Puppetress.
En route you’ll explore maze-like environments with the WASD keys while hammering the space bar to chop up an endless succession of weird and wonderful monsters.
In many cases, the number of monsters crowding the screen will overwhelm you.
That’s where we found the potions useful. The Puppeteer’s showpiece mechanic is its potion system, which sees you collecting various berries and combining them in countless different ways to create potions.
These potions all unlock different powers and abilities, giving you a huge amount of scope to experiment with different tactics as you fight your way towards the Puppetress.
The Puppeteer also does some interesting things with narrative. The titular Puppeteer starts out as a conventional villain, but “inconsistencies” start to pile up as we progressed.
We enjoyed the twists the game threw at us – there’s more than enough to keep even the most experienced players interested here. From both a gameplay and narrative perspective, no mean feat.
Plus, there are multiple different endings to experience, depending on which hidden areas you discover and which characters you meet, so you can add replayability to the growing list of pros.
The Puppeteer is available on Steam right now, and we’d recommend checking it out.
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