Review by: Tom Chick

Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet lives up to about half its title. It’s certainly a shadow planet, lovingly drawn in stylish 2D, often with intriguing creatures and landscapes looming in the background. It pulses and throbs and sprouts pistons when you least expect it. It contains seas and clockwork and flittering things that may or may not spit bullets at you or explode when you draw near. This is certainly a strange and evocative place, worthy of some weird French cartoon or maybe even some prog rock album cover in the ‘70s.

But Insane? Twisted? Not really. Maybe I'm expecting something involving a clown posse or a hair metal band. That's probably my own baggage. But I can't shake the feeling that Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet is actually conventional. It's not nearly as memorable as its title would have you believe. You might say it’s entirely suited to that niche of downloadable games you’ll play through once and then maybe recall fondly a couple of times in the next few months. And when someone mentions it a year from now, you'll wonder if it's that one that you played that you forget the name of.

The formula will be familiar to anyone who's plumbed a Castlevania or Metroid. You work your way across a manageable 2D map, compartment by compartment, unfogging the landscape towards a clearly labeled destination. At designated points, you get new tools that open new passages. You might find the occasional cranny that gives the proceedings a whiff of non-linear exploration. Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet will give you the occasional power-up if you want to scour these crannies, but it's mostly a matter of finding concept art that, sure enough, looks a lot like what you're already looking at. Funny how that works in 2D games.

Frankly, the power-ups aren't that impressive either. This isn't a game where it matters terribly whether you gather all those shield components to get to level 3 shields. Your little flying saucer -- and, really, it's quite precious as far as flying saucers go -- gets its share of weapons, but this isn’t an action game. The twin stick action is usually used to pick at or point at things. Shooting is only occasionally required, and there’s no incentive to run around killing things if you can just wobble politely past them. I like that approach. You're a lost tourist, not a rampaging commando. Contrast this with EA's slightly sterile Microbot or even Pixeljunk's feisty Shooter, both of which look and play a bit like Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet. But those two games are invested in shooting things and clearing levels. Your goal here is just, well, your goal.

The main challenge is the occasional puzzle. But even these are pretty laidback, emerging organically from the world. This is a wonderfully non-verbal game. No one talks to you. There is no text to read. Nothing is explained because the point of the game is figuring out what’s what. I like that approach, too. When learning a game is a self-contained facet of the game itself, a carefully nested piece of the experience, there’s a special sense of satisfaction from no one is telling you what to do. Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet is built to give you an “oh, that’s how it works!” revelation, reminiscent of Portal. And the non-verbal aspect gives the game a slightly lonely and isolated feeling. You're alone in your little flying saucer, just trying to get home.

But unlike Portal, most of these puzzles feel conventional, with just enough of a physics skew to feel true to the world. You’ve seen these gimmicks in other games, so it's ultimately a familiar grammar involving water, gravity, light beams, and so forth. The charm comes from the execution and the funky artwork. Like I said, not insane or even twisted. But, to be fair, Charming Shadow Planet doesn't have quite as much punch. So maybe when someone mentions it a year from now, I'll remember that I played it after all.