New as of the Saturday before last: the sequel to Iji and Garden Gnome Challenge author Daniel Remar‘s own Hero, Hero Core. It’s a crunchy, deliberately old-fashioned game, apparently influenced in equal parts by Section-Z (the character movement), Zelda (the overall structure), and Blaster Master (the enemy movement, and some of the tone). I’d say Metroid, but that’s too easy and doesn’t seem accurate in this case.

The game uses just two colors, has crunchy sound effects and .xm-based music (for all you demoscene fans), and controls the same way a saltine feels against the teeth. That is to say, it’s cathartic and has a low overhead. It’ll easily run even on a netbook. You can keep playing one more screen, then save when you’ve had enough and hop back in at will. Classy stuff, wrapped in a snazzy interface.

You can view the trailer here: