Saturday, 10th July 2021

Little Orpheus
Game Little Orpheus
Released 2021
Developer The Chinese Room
Available Apple Steam

Little Orpheus is a brilliant platformer in which you run jump swing through nine fantastical worlds. You do need to time some of the jumps well, there are several chase sequences, and the last section has a tougher arcade like sequence. I managed with a number of retries, I count myself as action challenged, but you are warned.

The plot has a hapless Soviet cosmonaut launched into the Earth on a rocket drill to see if there's subterranean regions suitable of Socialist colonisation. On his unsuccessful return he has to explain to an intimidating general what happened, and what happened to the general's atomic bomb (Little Orpheus) he was entrusted with.

His response is to spin yarns worthy of Don Quixote and Baron Munchhausen about heroic odysseys deep inside the Earth. Including meeting up with space dog Laika. The worlds are stunning, there is a lot of humour, the production values are high.