Gun Running, Gun Jumping: Teppoman 2

Oh, this is wonderful. And a month old. Nevermind! Japanese indie freeware dev Ikkiki, whose games are largely distinguished by little men without any trousers on, has released a sequel to espionage-acrobat platformer Teppoman (which Google Translates as The Slightest Man). You can grab it here- it's the second game down on the list, the one with the release date of '10/06/21'. You can find the controls here, and you can also read me jabbering excitedly about it after the jump.

This is the Spelunky school of platforming, basically. Teppoman 2 is fast-paced to the point of skittishness and overwhelmingly brutal, yet it's so expertly put together that it begs to be mastered. Both Spelunky and Tep. 2 also focus on the use of items snatched off the ground, both build tension by threatening to send you all the way back to the start and both have their own method for softening the accompanying irritation.

This is where the similarities end, because while Spelunky was a randomised exploration type affair, Teppoman 2 offers levels like obstacle courses which you gradually learn to blitz as fast as possible using all of tiny Teppoman's slick maneuveres.

There's a wonderful catharsis to seeing yourself go rocketing through a level you've completed ten times before. There you are, effortlessly backflipping over walls you'd previously levelled with a bomb. There you go, gliding up to a group of guards and taking them all out with two blink-quick shotgun blasts. There it-- NO! You got cocky and a guard took you out with a lazy spray from his rifle. Following ten seconds of breathing into a paper bag, you try again. For real, this time.

It'll be a very rare breed of gamer that elbows their way through Teppoman 2 without ever wanting to see a guide, and the bosses that show up every five levels can be particularly frustrating. Lucky for the rest of us, then, that a search for Teppoman on YouTube provides walkthroughs for the whole game. Hooray! God, we're such terrible gamers. Our parents would be ashamed.

Here's those links to the game (second one down) and controls again. Man, there's a lot of games on that download page. If one of you wants to try the rest of the games on there to see if there's any gold and drop my an email with your findings, I'd be much obliged.