Cinematic platformer Bionic Bay opens with a scene of a very large egg doing very bad things – definitely my third favourite genre of speculative fiction. You wake up to a world filled with tree trunks writhing like innards and corroded contraptions powered by a luminous fluid stored inside balls, uh, large glass globes. A beam of light soon fills your character with newfound vitality, which is a beautiful moment of triumph in what otherwise feels like a pit of oppressive rust, all unstable platforms and uneven pipes.
It doesn’t take long to spot examples of why Bionic Bay went viral earlier this week. Above you hangs a meticulously detailed mass of vents and wires, rising realistically with dust, shadow and history. I stopped to stare because I’d seen the sausage being made, but as usual I think I’ll stick around for a bit longer. It really is that impressive.
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Your guy is much more athletic than your average clumsy Inside or Limbo trundler, able to leap and flip through the air, make huge dives and giant leaps. You'll need those, too. Laser beams, exploding barrels, and other hazards are common. In that sense, it's much closer to a traditional platformer, but checkpoints are very frequent. Your guy also has a powerful ragdoll, so watching him get thrown around the screen against walls is also a lot of fun. Soon, you'll get a little gadget that lets you swap places with environmental objects, which opens up the game to clever traversal puzzles.
It's also incredibly creative in its challenges. On one screen, you'll be timing your shots to match the searing liquid emissions of a steam vent that could melt you. On the next, you'll be hoisting yourself above what look like twinkling stars in a red nebula. It perfectly captures the cinematic platforming feel of being a clumsy little guy who's always way out of your depth.
In the Xitter clip I shared above, the artist shows the incredible amount of work that goes into a single tree trunk, then shares a clip of the player character running past it within seconds. It's crazy how much work goes into something most people wouldn't even notice, so this is a deeply human expression of art that gets me up every morning to write about games. Thanks, guys! Bionic Bay has a demo here