The Planet of the Vicious Creatures

The planet of the EVERYTHING THAT WANTS TO KILL YOU
Let me get this straight: you will die on this game. A LOT.
Now that's clear, let's go into the game.
You're an astronaut transported through a portal to an alien planet, with a strange landscape, and filled with strange critters that are aggresive, dangerous, poisonous, and overall, deadly. So, basically, Australia.
Now, you need to find another portal back to earth. Sounds easy? Think again
On one hand, lower gravity allows you to jump really high to try to escape the local fauna. On the other, a toxic atmosphere means that you'll need to catch the oxigen orbs spread through the different levels in other to progress, lest you want to find your demise in a slow, agonic breathless dead (instead of the usual "killed by a giant mutant grasshopper from hell" one). Aside from jumping, you'll be able to crouch to try to avoid you impending doom, and that's basically it. Don't expect no weapons, nor powerups. You're on your own here, mate.
Upon finding your first enemy (A cute, harmless looking (don't be fooled) caterpillar), you'll learn two things: first, you can't stomp on your enemies mario style, and two, avoiding your foes is going to be hard. REALLY HARD.
And here's the gist of the game's design. Like the computer games of old, gameplay is divided in screen based levels, in which you'll need to rely on pixel perfect jumps, excellent timing, and lots of repetition in order to progress. To the point that it becomes almost like a puzzle platformer by itself.
This will be the polarizing point of the game. Let me tell you, POTVC is not a game for everyone. It's a game for oldschool enthusiasts, looking for a challenge with a classic flavour. You'll need patience for this one, or you may end with a broken keyboard.
Knowing this, the game comes with a practice mode, that will let us try the different levels in order to learn the pattern of each screen safely, without losing any of our precious lives.
Visually, the game is a gorgeous tribute to those old games, showing us some really pretty designs, along with a vibrant palette.
Sound is pretty neat too, with the usual bleeps and blops of days past, and the music really helps us get into the game, inspired by the old scifi movies, and adding an undertone of loneliness underneath it all, not unlike the original metroid.
Technically wise, the game is rock solid, and the controls responsive. If you die during a jump, (and you will) you'll know it as an error on your side, and never the case of a lousy implementation.
TL DR;
Nice old school game, evoking the classics, and with insane difficulty. Go for it if you want a real challenge, or avoid if you're not up for it.
Also, beware of those pesky grasshopers, Damn them!

Arrrrgh, who is Jorge Giner Cordero and why does he hate me so much ??? :)
I love a gaming challenge but this is almost insanely difficult. It's just on that sweet-spot of near impossible that stops you rage quitting and drags you back for one more go. Be warned, this requires pixel perfect timing and jumping.
It reminds me superficially of a great old game I used to play to death on the Spectrum 48k many moons ago called Nodes of Yesod by Odin software. However, whilst It is channelling Nodes of Yesod’s ghost in both terms of the lovely pixel art graphical style and to a large extent gameplay, it is much more difficult.
The sound is also very well done. With a range of suitable and well-crafted retro noises that add to the atmosphere very well. The background music is rather good too and again perfectly suited to the game.
It’s all about pattern recognition and resolution via perfect timing and not twitch reflexes. Essentially it’s an unforgiving action puzzle platformer which will require a lot of repetition and patience to progress.
I picked this up in a bundle and am very glad that I did. It is a game I will play a lot of but probably not for extended periods at a time, otherwise the game may fall into frustration territory and that would be a shame. I want the game to reveal its secrets to me without throwing my keyboard out of the window.
It's a true retro classic and so far, despite being extremely tough, it’s been fair and very well designed. If (when) you die (and you will countless times) it will be because you didn’t time your move or jump correctly and never because of the controls or poor implementation. That said anyone who gets all 60 of the oxygen tanks has my admiration. Just under an hour in and 10 is my best so far.
It’s extremely stable with no glitches or crashes to desktop. It does what it’s designer set out to do with great panache and oozes a genuine love of retro gaming.
Recommended for the brave and for old gits like me who want some retro goodness in their lives. I look forward greatly to more games from the evil dev retro genius Jorge Giner Cordero.
Did I mention it's also very, very difficult…. ?? :)

Morlan's shorts:
I am leaving a positive recommendation just because of the effort and the really retro graphics and music (it almost looks as if it was actually programmed in the 80s) and you can tell this was a labour of love.. Well, affection at the very least.. The whole visual/audio presentation is really nice but the gameplay is a tad problematic. The game is very inconsistent in the collision detection department (what you young ones call "hitboxes" nowdays). You can approach some bugs (alright alright..the spider is not a bug! ) very closely and almost touch them and survive and some are pixel-boom so in essence you don't know how to approach a certain level until you die.. many times.. I don't get much pleasure out of that so bear in mind that this is a game for only hardcore masochists. It's a pity that it doesn't have achievements as I'm sure those who are after such challenges appreciate the "show off" factor and it would help the game's sales.
Don't waste more time reading lengthy reviews.. time is of the essence!

Review - The Planet of the Vicious Creatures
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Rating: 70 / 100
The old-school is back, in all its satisfaction and difficulty.
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- Absolutely essential purchase
- Recommended purchase*
- Purchase only if on sale
- Purchase only if on heavy sale
- Avoid purchasing
*Note: This is a Recommended Purchase only if you are a real enthusiast of old-school, brutally difficult platformers. For all players not experienced or passionate to this kind of games, i do NOT suggest purchasing.
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Introduction
The Planet of the Vicious Creatures is an old-school themed and inspired platformer. The player will control a nameless astronaut and will have to guide him (or her maybe?) through various platform-based levels of increasing complexity.
The mechanics at the game core are pretty simple: arrow keys control all the functions you need, namely Left, RIght, Jump and Crouch. Your objective is to pass through each level from one side to the other, this though can only be done after the player collected the Oxygen Sphere present in each level, without which, the access to the next level is barred.
In each level, there will be a great variety of both living creatures and environmental hazards to impede the player's progression: space caterpillars, locusts, spiders, fire-breathing lizards, acid clouds and thunderbolts are only some of the enemies and obstacles the player will face. And each one of them will kill mercilessly, in one hit, like in the true old-school games.
You will need pixel-perfect precision in each movement and jump in order to pass each level, there is absolutely no room for mistakes.
But despair not, as there is a convenient Practice Mode, activated with the 0 key, that allows the player to try out a level without losing any life if death occurs, in order to perfect the timing and understand how to overcome that specific level's obstacles. Of course, you will not be able to progress to the next level if you complete the current one while in Practice Mode.
During the course of the whole game you will have 10 lives at your disposal, one hit from any damage source will take out one and restart the current level. If all the lives are depleted, you will have to restart the whole 60 levels back from square one. Hardcore.
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The Good
- Graphics style is very inspired to the platformers of times past, it really looks like something thrown at us right from back in the '80s. This is exactly the style a retro platformer needs.
- Hardcore experience: 60 levels, 10 lives and ZERO room for any mistake. Each level is extremely, brutally, excruciatingly difficult, on the verge of being impossible... but it is not.
- The Practice Mode is a very good idea, it really helps players to understand the mechanics of each level andd hone their skills without losing lives, and they will lose a lot of them. It also mitigates the extreme frustration factor that derives from a game of this type.
- Decent sound design overall, nothing exceptional but does the job, some effects are pretty good and are well suited with the retro theme.
- Good variety of enemies and obstacles, each one has its own patterns and is a different challenge.
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The Bad
- There is no save system. If the player has something else to do while doing level say, 30 out of 60, and quits the game, he will have to start the game all over again.
- No inertia when stepping off cliffs: the player will drop down as if a boulder was tied to his feet... in a low-gravity environment.
- The game runs only in 4:3 aspect ratio, i may suppose this is for the sake of the "retro" theme, but still no support for widescreen resolutions is not a good thing.
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The Ugly
Nothing ugly in this game, apart from space wasps. I hate space wasps. And you will too.
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Conclusions
This game is a great tribute to the classic oldschool platformers, and mixed with an incredibly high difficulty and learning curve, comes out as the perfect hardcore experience for those that are really passionate and dedicated to this kind of games.
I would never suggest this to people who are not veterans of hardcore platforms, because of the difficulty level which is just... unbelievable.
A very good game for some, but for its hardcore and retro style it sacrifices accessibility to a larger playerbase. Still, something not to miss if you are a nostalgic old timer or some madman up for one of the most challenging platformers out there.

Hi! My name's Sasha Zenko. I'm from Belarus.
I am making hardcore letsplay videos handsfree (using only my chin).
I have a program that allows me to assign keyboard controls to mouse movements.
I play your game. It's very good. I like it.
Watch me playing your game without hands here:

Easy to play, hard to master ;)
Don't be deceived, because this game is really difficult to pass!
Full retro, brillant design and 'that' feeling while playing - BRAVO! :)

I really enjoyed the graphics, sprites and music of this game. Sadly it's also HARD AS FUCK, be prepared to make pixel perfect jumps constantly.
Quick Look: