Playing on a monitor that exceeds 60 hz seems to break the game. There's one section really early on where you're supposed to jump over 3 thorns while sliding down a hill and I was simply unable to do it on my 144 hz monitor as the gnome simply loses all momentum mid air while sliding. I swapped the game over to my second monitor which is 60 hz and it worked just fine. Seems like an issue that needs to be worked out, I hope it can be fixed.

All in all, I recommend this game if you're playing on a 60 hz monitor but if you only have 144 hz or anything above 60, the game seems to just not work correctly and make it so you're unable to progress.

My Playtime: 3.3h (finished the game)

Nubarron: The adventure of an unlucky gnome is a platformer game with 3 boss fights in it. You'll traverse through 3 areas, armed with a cloud that has different perks based on its current appearance.

Pros:
- Varied gameplay based on the cloud's state
- Tricky puzzles to solve
- Checkpoints are abundant
- Quick reload after dying

Cons:
- Double jump can be hard to execute
- Enemies' attack range is too big, especially on one enemy that spawns in the final boss
- Unstable platforms and floaty jump makes it hard to traverse the area
- Unable to revisit previous areas for collectibles

Specs
Intel Core i5-9300H 2.40GHz, 8GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650

No.
Unless you want to play a short platformer game with annoying hitboxes, do not buy this game.

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The game has good-looking visuals. Dialogues might look cheap since they suddenly appear without warning, but the style is still in sync with the rest of the visuals. The colors look painted with the brush strokes and gradients, with the base object drawn in more detail. Everything looks nice in the eye, especially with the lighting and background that make the visuals look engaging.

I'm not sure if the story is based on a children's story or something, but I felt like playing a continuation of another game. Facts were blurted out of nowhere without me knowing what happened. Your character also doesn't have any direction - he just did everything everyone told him even if the request doesn't make sense. The story feels as if it serves just for the sake of the game, and while the ending suggests that there is room for a sequel, it wasn't captivating enough as for now.

Gameplay
The game is a mix of precision platformer and puzzle platformer. Both aspects are switched from time to time as you play with varying difficulties and mechanics. I never get bored in clearing them since they don't feel similar - even if some look that way, they are usually more difficult to give more challenge.

Despite the good level design, the controls are horrible. First of all, it's hard to execute a double jump. The game introduces the double jump and float mechanic at roughly the same time, and it can be exhausting to execute the first one. Holding your jump button just for a few minutes after jumping will trigger the floating mechanic, which will leave you at a lower altitude than double jumping. Since the platforming section tends to be strict, a double jump is a must to traverse some areas. The floaty jumping mechanic also feels weird at first, although it becomes bearable later on since you have to float most of the time.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2484721676

The platforming sections can be tricky to traverse. You need to jump when you cross two platforms that are close to each other, and there are even some areas where double jump won't trigger if you are too close to an obstacle. You'll encounter death a lot of times, although luckily, it doesn't take a long time before you can retry the area. Moreover, checkpoints are abundant so you don't have to worry about losing progress.

Some areas rely on RNG to solve. Enemies will throw projectiles in some areas, forcing you to wait before you can cross. However, sometimes their pattern isn't reliable enough, especially whenever there are a lot of them on the screen. You'll be forced to restart an area and try it several times until the luck is on your side. Ironically, this also happens in the final boss fight where you need to be lucky with the enemy's spawn position.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2476575796

Puzzle
The puzzle is one of the good things that the game has. Most puzzles are switch-based although you need to think a bit when you execute it for the first time. Boss fights can also be tricky since you need to do a certain action to damage them, giving more variety to the platter. However, one puzzle can be hard to solve, especially since there are hardly any hints to solve. You need to think a bit and try some solutions to finish the puzzles, although it shouldn't take long before you figure out how to solve them.

Length and Difficulty
I finished the game in 3.3h. I died a lot of times, stuck on one of the puzzles, and did a lot of retries on the final boss. The final boss can be annoying to beat due to the random spawn location, which can kill you easily from the monsters' huge blast radius. It can be hard to dodge despite me knowing how to beat the boss in the first place. Nevertheless, the game should be doable to finish as long as you don't mind retrying several tries, although the game's mechanics can take some time to get used to.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2486727262

Problems
It's hard to differentiate between a switch that requires a manual input or a cloud attack to open. The game also displays the control for the double jump wrong for controllers. I wanted to switch to a mouse and keyboard at some point since I didn't like aiming with a controller, but I couldn't figure out how to aim with a mouse.

The game needs a lot of QoL fixes. The puzzles are interesting and the visuals are appealing, but sadly, the platforming section doesn't feel right. It was too punishing with the hitboxes, and the tricky controls can be annoying to some people. The game might try to give some incentive for exploration by introducing collectibles, but it fails miserably since there is no way to revisit previously visited areas. Moreover, the final boss can be annoying to beat with the huge blast radius and RNG factor. The game has some potential, but those aspects need to be fixed first before the game can be enjoyed to its fullest.

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DISCLAIMER:I picked this game up for free.

Although I'm not a a fan of the genre,the story behind the game peaked my interest,and I can say it was a fun 5 hours.(Without any help of tutorial or outside assistance - And as first time player of the genre[Puzzle Platformer],it was frustrating at points)

Pros:
-Great art.
-Good story.
-Good puzzles(Most of them are easy but fine)

Cons:
-The controls are iffy.[If you decide to play it,change your refresh rate to 60hz so you can jump higher.]
-Where you should go,could be frustrating to figure out at some points.

(5/10)

I don't recommend if you have a monitor with a high refresh rate. Early into the game there is a mudslide part with 3 consecutive jumps that need to be done that is completely impossible for me since I have a 144Hz monitor.
The developers acknowledged this in the forums, but instead of actually doing a patch they just say to manually change the refresh rate of your monitor to 60Hz for the duration of playing the game.
Instead of making the players jump through all of these hoops to fix it themselves, they should just release a patch that caps the frame rate.

Because of all of this I can't recommend this to anyone with a monitor above 60Hz. I will change this review if and when they make a patch.

Is this game a masterpiece? No, but it is a short, beautiful 2D puzzle platformer.

You play a little gnome who lost his lucky hat. While searching for it, a cloud suddenly appears over your head and follows you everywhere you go. The cloud seems to be quite sultry, sometimes helping you, often just killing you with lightning.
There are times when you can control the clouds lightning, and there are times when the cloud kills you whenever you stop moving. I prefer the times when you can roast harmless little rabbits with thunder. Or those spikey crab-mushroom creatures. When trying to ask the wise owl how to get rid of the cloud, the cloud shoots one of its thunderbolts at Nubarron, the encyclopedia of the forest, scattering its pages everywhere. So your task becomes to collect all the pages,
learning about the forest and its inhabitants this way.

The platforming is not too challenging, the puzzles are not too difficult. Pull levers, energize machines with lightning, turn wheels, push crates... You die when you touch enemies, fall down from too high or get hit by fireballs. You also die when lightning hits water and you happen to be inside this water.

Gamepad recommended.

Conclusion:
Stylish puzzle platformer. Short but beautiful and with an anomalous sidekick that can get on your nerves.

Hit boxes are all whacky in this. It honestly feels like all the effort went into the art and music (which is quite lovely) and then an AI came along and did it's best at piecing together some code to get the thing moving like games do. To me it feels like someone wrote a kids book, couldn't get published so used SquareSpace or something like GameMaker to chuck it together. After getting completely stuck and unable to progress because I have a monitor that goes above 60hz, I decided not to continue playing this. It defines the word meh.

Stunning art and fine level design make this beautiful platformer a fun and original Indie Gem, get it!


Edit: After having finished this awesome game I can say It's a worthwhile experience, Music is sweet and the characters are charming, loved it!! I'll continue to try to 100% it :)

An extremely well hand-drawn, simple plataformer. Doesn't have the greatest controls in gaming history, but the devs seems to be nice enough people that hit (several) rough patches during development and publishing.

The gameplay is great! Simple and challenging. The story, even though short, is gripping to the end. I'd have liked to see more of it. Looking forward for the next one to come!

As said in other reviews, this game is visually appealing but does everything else poorly

Not worth your time even if you got it for free