Over the course of the Switch’s lifespan, indie developers have found a wide variety of ways to both entertain and challenge gamers. While there are certainly those that have tapped into well-known and reliable styles, there have also been many who’ve charted their own path. I personally tend to be more appreciative of the teams who are taking risks and deviating from the norm, and that’s a big part of why I originally created this channel. Quadroids, with its somewhat odd blend of testing your attention, reflexes, and often morbid strategy, may be a more challenging sell since its style is so unfamiliar, but to me that’s also at the center of its appeal. But perhaps part of the reason for that is that it reminds me of a mix of an old arcade oddball game called Chicken Shift, and a clever but morbid indie game called REZ PLZ.

In theory, the premise of the game is quite simple. Help one or more of your little people get from their starting base to a destination flag, with your only means of controlling them being pressing a button to make them jump. Oh, but the devil’s in the details, and it’s so much more complicated than that. First, your screen is broken down into 4 quadrants, with each changing which button you’ll need to press to make your people jump as they move from screen to screen. That, and the fact that moving out of the zone on the lower-right doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll go to the lower-left, takes a little getting used to, but it is manageable. When you’re expected to do the same with 2 different people it gets a bit tougher.

From that pretty humble beginning things continue to get more challenging, with you needing to help them avoid different traps and obstacles, but then to make things even more entertaining the game’s morbid side emerges. In some cases the only way forward will be to start sacrificing some people so that others may succeed. Have a span of spikes or an acid pit that is too wide to jump? Sorry, but someone’s going to have to sacrifice themselves to become a stepping stone. This continues to add new challenges as you move ahead, and each new threat has different properties you’ll need to take into account.

The result is pretty well a constant test of your ability to multitask, and react, but initially you’ll also often have to experiment a bit, working out what you’ll need to do in order to succeed. This all makes for a unique and challenging experience, one I’ll note you can also share with friends if you’re fond of having excuses to yell at one another when someone drops the ball. Just to make things even nuttier, there are often timed challenges in levels as well, which demand even greater concentration and execution to complete successfully. All things considered it can be tough on your patience and sanity, but for the right crowd it’s absolutely a unique and addicting challenge.