One of the things I love the most about indie developers, and the games they make, is their ability to be surprising. When you have a solid idea, and are willing to do as much with it as possible, you can truly do some great things… even if only on a somewhat small scale. When I first saw Fowl Damage I’ll admit that I just about rolled my eyes, expecting it to be a one-dimensional joke of a game. Imagine my delight when just a minute or two in, it was clear that I’d underestimated this clever budget puzzle platformer. The basic idea here is quite simple. You’ll be playing as an egg, and your only primary ability is to jump. The problem is, you’re unable to control the height of your jump, and unless you land higher than where you started from you’ll break. Fall too far? You’ll break. Jump up into something above you? You’ll break. 

It turns out your life as an egg is quite fraught, and that’s kind of where too many indie games fall down, finding a decent hook but then failing to follow through and make the most of it. Fowl Damage, by contrast, really goes for it in a way I respect. How the developers have pulled this off is through very careful level design. Every space you roll into will require you to think about what it will take to get through them safely. Most of the time that will require going down to go up safely, and then down again in a specific way. Then, just to tempt you further, there are feathers hidden around each major area that you’ll encounter which will require some extra effort to get to, and then get to the next room without breaking as well. Heck, there are even some boss encounters to worry about, showing the developers’ commitment to the bit can’t be questioned.

Of course, that isn’t to say there aren’t some issues. While new zones will bring new ways for you to keep from smashing yourself Humpty Dumpty style, some feel more approachable than others. When it comes to finding the game’s secrets there can also be issues in some areas, in particular with it not always being clear where you are capable of going in the first place. Some spots may look accessible but aren’t, and in some cases it seems to be easy to simply miss a spot where you could get to a feather if you knew it was there. Granted, overall these are more nitpicking complaints for the most part, but when you’re trying to do something a bit new and different, you really need to be on top of the potential problems or points of confusion people may have when trying to get the most out of the experience.