A Timely Death Is Wise: Soul Brother

I would make a gag about a game concerning resurrection being entirely relevant today, but someone religious will probably come and shout at me if I do. So I won't. Superflat Games' Soul Brother is another one of those delightfully crazy webgame gems which regularly pitch up on Adult Swim's site, and is perhaps best described as a 16-bit platform game about strategic suicide.

When you die, your soul jumps to the nearest host so that you can continue. I guess Kirby is probably a good touchstone, in that each type of host has different powers - the cat can double-jump, the bird can fly, the sort of worm/rodent thing can fit into small spaces. So dying is actively encouraged; necessary even, as you'll need specific abilities to make it through the level.

It's smart, offbeat and charming with an agreeable soundtrack, and wastes no time in getting mildly tricky. I liked it a lot, even though it involves making a cat repeatedly plunge to its death - something I spent two hours nervously trying to prevent yesterday, when my cat climbed out the window and got itself stranded on a ledge three houses down the street. Stupid bloody animals.

Soul Brother, however: not stupid, and nor is it bloody, despite all the death. Good stuff.

Via Hello Games' Twitter, which I shall link to even though we hate them to death because they won't release Joe Danger on PC.