A Walk In The Dark Is No Walk In The Park

Gorgeous shadowy platformer A Walk In The Dark was officially released a year ago. However, via the magic of that green, green light, it's now launching itself all over again via its appearance on Steam. I'm pretty convinced that Greenlight isn't working so well, but it'll be interesting to learn whether these much-delayed indie releases give games a second bite of the money pie.

In the 2D, side-scrolling game, you play as either a sleek, leaping cat, or a young girl who inverts her gravity rather than jumping. And each is trapped in a world crafted by a sadistic lunatic who over-ordered spikes and spinning blades. The result is a super-precision platformer, where brushing against an obstacle means instant death, and back to the start of the level. However, levels are very brief, so this is never too hideous a setback.

I find the need for perfect control to be as much a test of patience as it is skill. But then of course it's evidence that I'm a gaming genius whenever the patience pays off an I get past a tricky sequence. And it certainly does help that deaths see your character collapse into smoke, in a really quite stunning animation. That and the calming, Einaudi-like piano music helps to maintain my calm.

You can now pick the game up for a fiver on Steam, or you can still buy it directly from the developers for £4.