- Game: Siactro's Super Kiwi 64.
- Release Month: December.
- Quick Look: Here (Grubb / Jess).
- Started: 30/12.
- Completed: 30/12.
I first encountered this Marcus "Siactro" Horn character just a few months back when I decided to cover three of his commercially-released games for Indie Game of the Week (IGotW #284). His big thing, as far as I can tell, is recreating the late-'90s golden era of 3D platforming with his lo-fi but solidly-built Rare ersatz collectathons: Macbat 64 was a stylistic homage to the Platonic ideal of a N64 platformer while his two Toree games had more of a Sega Arcade/Dreamcast sensibility with their bright Day-Glo colors and hyperactive temperament. Siactro had one last surprise for us all in 2022 with Super Kiwi 64—a remaster of one of his earlier freeware experiments, Kiwi 64—and even more shockingly it was through this game that the site's staff discovered him also. Kismet or coincidence? Either way, I feel like the dude's deservedly on more radars now, because while much of Super Kiwi 64 can feel like it was made in a bedroom over a weekend it also makes a strong argument that its creator knows his way around this specific format. And, honestly, there aren't a lot of Indie developers that can say the same with this degree of confidence.
Super Kiwi 64 isn't big on presentation. Lacking an introductory cutscene, the game unceremoniously dumps you into a small sewer-like hub area from which eight other short stages can be accessed. These stages are thematically grouped into four groups of two, and contain a few sets of collectibles that all lead to the objects you're there to find: amethyst-like gemstones called powercells that are necessary to power your canine companion's plane so you can get out of there, with 40 of the game's total of 50 needed to roll credits. The narrative is essentially non-existant: all that matters is that there are glowing things to collect, targets to hit, rings to jump through, and secret codes to find. Between the protagonist's dash (which also works in mid-air), his glide, and a method of using constant wall-jumps to scale most vertical surfaces these stages are extremely accessible and even if Kiwi has a health bar (which are represented by kiwis, but the other kind) there's not a whole lot in the way of hazards or enemies to worry about spoiling your explorations. The eight stages have some small variety in their direction—one's effectively a series of locked doors and switches that eventually lowers the whole stage, revealing almost all of its major collectibles in one clump—but usually follow the same pattern of running around collecting things in the environment using an awkward camera and Kiwi's dexterous move set until it's been completely exhausted of shinies. The game's one incentive to collecting powercells beyond the total you'll need to escape on the plane is a special area that lets you input the special codes found on the walls of previous levels, some of which lead to silly cheats and some other fun surprises.
Like his previous releases, Siactro doesn't feel the need to add more polish than is necessary to make the game run and play smoothly so while it can feel like an unfinished tech demo as a result there's no denying that years of perfecting his craft has left his platformers feeling that much smoother, more fluid, and more precise to control. He could use the discipline to focus on making a game that actually feels like a finished professional product, possibly even dumping the lo-fi N64 aesthetic for something more glossy and modern, but I suspect that he'd be just as fine pumping out these tiny-budget throwbacks in perpetuity, and given the quality of them now I'm inclined to drop whatever pocket change he's asking for them. After all, I'm still eagerly awaiting the day when the Indie nostalgia machine moves ahead to the N64 era and starts producing this type of game en masse, in much the way it's done with explormers and puzzle-platformers previous, and Siactro's no doubt going to be riding the crest of that wave like an obnoxious '90s platformer mascot wearing shades while on a surfboard. All the best to that dude for living a very specific dream, and I can't wait to see what his bear-and-bird-addled creative vision produces next.
Programming Note: This is my last blog for 2022, but I'll be extending Go! Go! GOTY! into January 2023 as I've still many more games left to check out before I'm happy with my final list. See you in January for some lugubrious adventuring, pizzas, gardens, escape rooms, vampires, and more!
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