Öoo is a puzzle platformer boiled down to its purest form. It’s sorta like a Metroidvania, but it only has two powerups: Bomb and Another Bomb, progression is instead solely gated by learning all the various ways you can apply your bombs, and the regions of the game you explore through progressively teach you these innovative applications instead of just handing you a new shiny power-up.

So, rather than getting a High Jump power-up to jump high, you learn that the most basic way you can use your Bomb is to stand on it and let it bounce you up. You don’t get a Double Jump, you get a Second Bomb that you can stack, and that’s how it goes all the way through the game’s ~2-3 hour runtime. It isn’t a question of “I need to get the power-up that will let me do whatever”, it’s “I need to figure out how to use my bombs in a variety of increasingly creative ways to do whatever”. It absolutely still manages to do the Metroidvania staple of showing you something you can’t get to yet, sending you off to get the thing you need, looping you back around and now you can make progress… but the “thing” you need is knowledge and that rules.

It’s a short game, but it’s because there’s zero filler, nearly every room is a puzzle in itself or is part of a multi-room puzzle setup. There’s no combat, no enemies, just you and your bombs working through a gauntlet of puzzle after puzzle. It’s wonderful, it’s cheap, and can reasonably be knocked out in one sitting. Highly Recommended.