You control a young woman climbing a mountain, using a simple jump and an eight-directional air dash to navigate tight, tricky platforming rooms. Levels are short but demand precision, and dying resets you instantly so you can try again right away. Built-in assist options can slow the game down or grant extra dashes if the default difficulty feels like too much.
Gameplay video
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Screenshots & review notes
Why it lands
Few platformers manage to make failure feel this encouraging, wrapping punishing precision around a genuinely moving story about anxiety. It's a small miracle of a game that earns every bit of its acclaim.
How it plays
The eight-way dash is deceptively simple until the level design starts stacking hazards on top of it, ramping difficulty with real elegance. Assist mode means nobody has to be locked out.
Style and score
Pixel art with a modern sensibility and a synth score that swells at exactly the right emotional beats. It performs beautifully on Switch, without a hint of slowdown even in the chaos.
Who it's for
Strawberries and B-sides give completionists a brutal endgame to chase long after the story wraps. Recommended almost universally, whether you're a platforming veteran or someone who's never touched the genre.
Frames captured from the gameplay video above; notes are our own take on the game.
What it's like to play
You play Madeline, a young woman climbing a mountain that seems to actively resist her, and the game hands you just three moves right away: jump, a mid-air dash in any direction, and grabbing onto ledges and walls. You control her with the left stick and two buttons, and the very first screens teach you these moves gently, with short rooms built around a single obstacle before combining ideas into trickier platforming puzzles. Dying is instant, sending you right back to the start of that small room, and it happens constantly, but you're back trying again within a second so it rarely feels like a real setback.
Each of the game's chapters climbs higher up the mountain and introduces a new twist, like moving platforms, wind, or blocks that vanish underfoot, layering these ideas into precise little puzzles you solve with your timing and positioning rather than luck. Alongside the platforming, a quiet, personal story about anxiety and self doubt plays out through conversations with a mysterious double of Madeline you meet along the way, told through simple dialogue between climbing sections. A full playthrough of the main story takes around eight to ten hours depending on how many times a tough room makes you retry it, and harder optional levels are tucked away for players who want an even bigger challenge.
An assist mode lets you slow the game down or make yourself briefly invincible if the platforming proves too tough, so the story remains reachable even if your reflexes aren't sharp. Without that option, some rooms genuinely will test your patience and require dozens of attempts. If you enjoy tight, fair platforming challenges paired with a story that treats its subject matter with real care, this is one of the finest examples on the console.