Mask Quest

really addicting rage platformer with an interesting gimmick that permeates the design of everything u interact with.. also the dev got back to me in <2 hours when an unrelated bluescreen deleted my progress,, they just sent me a new save file on the exact level i was on

I had a good time playing Mask Quest, it's very creative and original, and features some very challenging platforming. But unfortunately, I find it difficult to recommend unless you have a bit of a masochistic taste in games. It's harsh, has very fiddly controls, and is often times unfair, but luckily pretty forgiving. Well at least in the Normal mode it's forgiving.
Having come from Increpare's "Stephen's Sausage Roll" I was a little disappointed in the quality of the level design. At it's best, it's very creative and makes fantastic use of it's gimmick, but too often the levels shy away from making good use of the gimmick and just revert to "default hard platformer" feeling, and at the same time I feel the central gimmick doesn't remain fully explored either, there's surprisingly few entities in the game that actually interact with your breathing. Water and smoke are great and obvious choices. I'm a fan of the sail boats too. But of the main enemies in the game only Drones even react to your breathing, and it's not even utilized that often. I can't exactly penalize the game for what it didn't do, but I feel like about half the game boils down to "do some tough platforming AND remember to breathe" which isn't particularly special. I think a lot of these levels should have been scrapped or reworked earlier in development to make them feel more distinctly "Mask Quest" and less just like generic platforming, since that ultimately inclines me to compare this game to other "hard platformers" that do the precision platforming thing much better, such as Celeste, which is not a favorable comparison for Mask Quest.
I think the achilles heel of that comparison is the game's use of randomness, or more accurately chaos. If you want to make a good precision platformer, you need to reign in outside factors. But unfortunately the hardest levels in Mask Quest make use of slightly random and arbitrary throwing arcs of smoke grenades, and wonky physics interactions between the Baton guards. Those levels can be quite painful. But most of the really nasty stuff is behind Hard Mode, fortunately.
So, I still think what's being offered is pretty enjoyable though, and worth the price and time for the right person. But I think the shortcomings make the game feel more like a polished prototype instead of a full, but short, game that I expected.

covid time capsule video game teaches breathing with your finger plus subtle social commentary reminds you the sign of our times, playthrough done in one afternoon (new game+ for those who miss covid)

Yeah this is a good game and the breathing part is not just a superficial gimmick, it creates genuine, interesting dynamics that ask the player to rewire how they play a demanding platformer, sometimes to hilarious effect. Breathing is a rhythmic exercise, and when that conflicts with the natural platforming rhythms well, disaster happens - so, this is also a rhythm game in disguise. Oh and a puzzle game - sometimes you really need to plan ahead too, so all this concoction ends up in player brainfarts quite often. It's very good, especially if you are looking for a distinct flavor in the crowded 2D platforming space.

increpare does it again, except instead of one of those puzzle games that will make your hair fall out, it's one of those platformers that will make your hair fall out.
Joke's on him though: I'm already bald.

quite stressful and epic

It's not like I Want To Be The Guy at all really.
It's more Celeste with a sense of humor.