Cold-blooded justice: Children of the Sun
One shot is all you get in this puzzle shooter.
Warning: This article contains images of stylised violence
‣ Children of the Sun
From: René Rother, Devolver Digital
Platforms: PC
Release: To be announced
Steam Page • Demo Video
You are out for revenge in this grindhouse puzzle shooter, the videogame embodiment of killing two birds with one stone.
Brandishing a sniper rifle, in each level you take out a bunch of cultists, avenging their brutality against your family. It's a dark story, and this is a dark game. So, is it wrong that Children Of The Sun is so much fun?
This is a try-and-try-again puzzler. A successful run at a level lasts just a few seconds, but make one mistake and you must start again.
The game's big conceit is that you have one shot, and if you miss, the shot is over. Yet, hit your target, and you get another chance to change the bullet's trajectory. You can also use special moves to affect it mid-flight.
The concept is simple, but execution (pun intended) is tricky. The cultists rarely line up in a neat row (in fact, they only do so in the first level). You must move around and find a good shot to start your one-bullet massacre, a process that can take a lot of failed attempts.
But every go brings you closer to figuring it out, and the canny deployment of timing and your special abilities can turn impossible shots into bullseyes.
It might sound like a grind, but the gameplay is very slick, sucking you in to go again and again. The only friction here is in the edgy art style.
Visually, Children Of The Sun can be a little disturbing, featuring stylised violence and explicit cut scenes. To even that out, it has a very grindhouse aesthetic. It's a game so hardboiled yet outrageous that you can't take it too seriously.
This blend of gritty content and compelling puzzle concept makes Children Of The Sun the package: pulling no punches, sure of what it wants to accomplish, and beautifully indie because you can't imagine a mainstream studio publishing it.
It doesn't try to be grotesque, yet it doesn't shy away from making you death incarnate. But only after failing many, many times.
📽 Demo in a nutshell: Start with the guy in the back…
Explore The Game with Youtube Chapters:
📽 00:16 An edgy start
📽 00:53 A quick tutorial
📽 01:58 The first kills
📽 03:20 Fuel tanks go boom
📽 05:04 Through the flames
📽 07:30 Failure!
📽 09:15 Move the bullet
📽 12:39 Quite a crowd
📽 18:22 Hit the weak spots
📽 31:06 After A LOT of failures
📽 39:43 Moving targets count
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