Developed/Published by: Réne Rother / Devolver Digital
Released: 09/04/2024
Completed: 30/03/2025
Completion: Finished it (and with all but a couple of achievements, too.)

Looking for more 2024 games that I could polish off quickly after Mouthwashing, I saw this recommended in Aurahack’s Top 10 of 2024 and it just sounded and looked extremely cool: a scribbly neon sniper game where you only get one bullet per level and have to guide the bullet between enemies to take them all down in one shot.

And… it is cool! Despite being “Devolver Digital”-core with the violence and the neon and that, it ploughs a different furrow than the likes of Hotline Miami, as the player takes the role of “THE GIRL” who, filthy and insane, attempts to destroy the cult that took everything from her using her psychic powers. The game is, ultimately, a puzzle game of first observation (finding and tagging enemies in the level) and then path-finding (planning the order in which to take down said enemies) but the atmosphere is what makes it: the visuals are clear in play, but emphasise a world gone wrong, and the soundscapes created by Aiden Baker, experimental ambience with a gothic-western flair, get you completely in the headspace of a ruthless hunter.

Importantly, the narrative gets out of its own way, being told just enough to be evocative, but not so much that it overpowers “vibes” with “details.”

I don’t know why but the promo shots Devolver Digital created don’t really capture how the game looks or how it plays. The launch trailer is ok, but Sleigh Bells isn’t actually the vibe…

It’s simply a cool game to hang out in–long periods of observance and planning followed by sudden flashes of extreme and cathartic violence. The game builds sensibly upon the foundation so that by the end of the game you’re equipped with a rational amount of ways to manipulate the bullet and facing a reasonable amount of enemies with special abilities that force you to think laterally, and then the entire thing over before you’re bored of the systems.

If I was really to complain, it’s that latter levels (unfortunately) do layer all the systems over slightly too many enemies, and failing on your one shot and having to do it all over again does become a bit of a pain in the arse–particularly because some enemies, also psychically equipped, can place a time pressure on you once you’ve fired your bullet (oh no, “pressure/puzzle” rears its head again!) By the end you have to not just meticulously plan your moves but how you’ll execute them, using a rapid turn here, or accepting that you’ll have to aim more quickly than the game has trained you to there.

For me, the last level particularly came close to spoiling the whole thing, because the game’s pleasure in play is that your failures are educational–you might fire off a shot just to find out how to navigate the level–but once you start failing repeatedly because you can’t execute your plan perfectly, it becomes frustrating rather than a clean march towards catharsis.

But I don’t mean to beat up on Children Of The Sun too much. It’s possible I got hyper-focused on my own specific solutions. And I’d call the game itself “focused” rather than short, because you can beat it, feel you got your money’s worth and not, particularly, feel like you want more (the time spent stymied probably helps with this.) I could probably tear through a bunch more easy levels, but it would be empty calories, and the design doesn’t support longer levels with ever more complex enemy and bullet interactions.

I mean this game is the bullet–it might take a couple of detours, but it hits the mark and doesn’t waste your time getting there.

Will I ever play it again? There’s a horde mode, but I couldn’t be bothered with it.

Final Thought: Unusually, Children Of The Sun is also a game where doing the achievements is a reward in and of itself, because they almost all offer an interesting and fun challenge on the level to go for that (generally) doesn’t make finishing the level more annoying or anything. I didn’t do them all–as I said, some of the later levels are just a touch too long–but I’d recommend trying for them on each level you play (but not being too bothered if you don’t manage them.)