Poncho was picked up in a bundle some time ago. I've had it downloaded and only played it today as I wanted something to quickly pick up and run with.

Unfortunately it did not fill the mental gap I was looking for, the game only has a couple of technical issues, but lacks something to keep one playing.

I'd like to point out that the appearance of the game is quite pretty. The forest levels at least have a great verdant feel to them, and there's lots of ambient animation. The junkyard has a good contrast to the desolation of the wasteland for the area.

Alas this can get in the way of the actual gameplay. The first two zones are not too bad, but the limitations from the camera soon come into affect.

Poncho changes up the platformer concept by allowing the player to warp between three different layers. Pressing down to move closer to the screen or jump+up to move further back.

This should be fun, it's a neat effect in navigating through the world. However it just does not quite work.

Often platforms are hidden behind other objects. Or you have situations where it appears you should be able to warp into a gap, but instead get an alert that there is not enough space. It often feels too zoomed in, not giving the player enough space to tell when is nearby.

Some moving platforms allow you to time it to jump and warp as the platforms themselves move between layers, but it fails more often than not when you try to jump left or right and over to a different layer.

Around zone three or four there's also platform columns that change position every time they warp. These can be used to platforms on a fixed layer that move left or right. There's one section where if you accidentally allow something to go backwards, you have a very long wait for it to return.

The other sin is that you have to move with the moving platform, it will not drag the character with you as you might expect. Come on devs! We had this back in the 8bit era and it is not something that needed to be kept!

At the core, its a throwback platformer with collectathon elements.

There's various red gems to collect in each level, along with keys. Keys can open doors, though some doors can be bypassed by swapping layers to get around them. It's kinda neat, but does make the door feel kinda useless.

In the junkyard you can meet the Junkyard King who tasks you with repairing his minions with an upgrade. You just need to be next to a dead minion and press ENTER to repair it.

This includes levels you may of already cleared. Making it feel less like a metroidvania and more of a chore.

Thankfully the # of what you have is recorded on a map, and little of it all appears required to progress.

It's really hard to recommend this one. It tries to do some cool things, but it just didn't work for me.

The game's post mortem is also an interesting read on pinning near everything on a game you are developing being a success in the flood of titles we now have available to choose from. It's worth a read if you are interested in what devs go through.

Game Acquisition: Bundle Stars (Killer 8 Bundle).
Platform Used: Steam
Tweet Threads: 1 - 21 July 2017
PC Used: Scorptec Venom 2009 MK2

OS: Windows Vista
Processor: 2.0 GHz CPU
Memory: 2 GB RAM
Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 6770M (Or similar with at least 512mb Vram)
Storage: 500 MB available space
Sound Card: N/A

Additional Notes: Despite the steam listed requirements above, the game has sound and music.