But you're still hungry.

...is a 3D platformer where you, the unnamed main character, put on a suit with a grappling hook and grapple your way through a trash disposal portal to find your uncle. As you can probably tell, the game's original idea was the grappling hook mechanic and the story came later.

First of all, play this game using a mouse and keyboard. There's no “auto-aim” if you use a controller, so good luck aiming at those small-ass rocks mid-grapple with one.

Second, you'll want to have a nonzero degree of spatial awareness for this game. It is not just important to be able to point your mouse at your next grapple target; you also have to know when to let go and freefall properly, lest you either bump into the rock you grappled (breaking your momentum) or fail to gain enough forward velocity to make it to the next rock or platform. The most frustrating aspect of the game was definitely being literal INCHES away from the next platform and falling short because I let go too late.

Anyway, the premise of the game is that you, the narrator, are telling a story to your daughter (which implies you survive your trip through trash disposal world) about the day you visited said trash disposal world. Your uncle had disappeared, so you went into his house, put on a strangely well-fitted suit, and wandered to the observatory, where you stepped on a big portal and got yeeted into trash disposal world. Your uncle keeps leaving trash and semi-smoldering fires all over the place, so you at least know he's been there. While at first you only have the ability to charge a “power jump”, you soon gain up to 3 grapples and use those to navigate. When I say navigate, I mean without a map, though. The only indicators of where to go are the direction each save spot points you towards and glowing glyphs that represent your uncle's grapples. (Somehow, his grapple marks last forever, but yours last like 30 seconds. Go figure.) Near the end, you also get rocket boots, which you can use to get an extra boost if you messed up your grapple. The game has a comforting rhythm: you look around for some rocks with grapple marks and hope they point you towards the next platform or save spot. Then you try a couple times to make it there – sometimes it's not clear where the next rock is, because you have to turn, and sometimes you fail at timing your grapples, and sometimes you accidentally click a spot twice and use up two of your grapples. When you get to the next platform, your grapples recharge, and maybe you poke around a bit to see if there are any other paths that could lead to more dialogue (i.e. narrator you telling your daughter some extra tidbit about your uncle). Then you repeat! There were a few particularly annoying sections: the windmills are notoriously finicky, the falling blocks section where you have to head back (and up!) by grappling a bunch of blocks going DOWN at various speeds, and one ice cave where I completely missed that you can grapple on the stalactites and thought I was supposed to land on some very thin not-actually-platforms. But most of the time the levels were intuitive, the mechanics were gently introduced, and I felt a real sense of accomplishment each time I made it to the next save point. I found the grappling quite exhilarating, especially once you encounter the recharging crystal formations that let you essentially grapple infinitely many times. It's really quite cool to swing past all the scenery and feel like you're effortlessly scaling mountains.

That said, the story is kinda wack. The second or third “biome” is inhabited by funny blue people that turn out to be...born from some weird frog eggs your uncle accidentally scooped up and tossed in the trash. Or something. And he eventually realizes that they've become sentient beings, not just lil frogs, and joins them to impart some semblance of civilization on them?? Then you follow after him and meet the frog people yourself. They've split into two “tribes”, separated by a chasm that you can't cross unless you have this fancy suit. You meet a girl, Maddie, from the “less advanced” (and more insular) tribe. Fred mentored her, so she accompanies you to find him, and when she sees the “Strays” (the other, more technologically advanced tribe), she decides to stay with them because they accept her curiosity. Then you go on to find Fred, who tells you about the frog people, and says he's invented a return mechanism using the crystals in this world. In the end he lets you go back, though, because his invention is one use only, while he stays to continue helping out the frog people. You go back, live the rest of your life like a normal person, and never see Fred again. At the end of the game, you write him a postcard and “send” it to him (it just...floats through the roof? not sure if that qualifies as sending), indicating closure, I guess. Now that I'm writing this, it sounds like the kind of story you'd make up in a fever dream.

The music and graphics were fine — I wasn't annoyed or wowed by either.

I'd recommend the game overall. It's pretty short and a fun ride. Plus maybe I got a little better at physics.