I recently became aware of Fermata on the pithos thanks to some arresting videos on developer Kyu Fu’s twitter: showing off an intriguing 32-bit aesthetic and smooth-looking 3D platforming. Merritt shared the following video in our editor’s chat, and I immediately needed to see more.
— 休符 (@kyu_fu) May 17, 2022
In it, a little robot-looking character glides quickly on rails, runs, jumps, rolls, and dips underwater, using a jetpack to dart around what looks like a massive, mysterious underwater city. It all looks fluid, responsive, and deliciously 32-bit, like a lost mascot platformer from the time of Croc or Gex (but presumably with modern physics and controls).
There’s a resetera thread here linking the dev’s YouTube channel and offering some context to the project, and the twitter feed is a little masterclass in social media intrigue: so many beautiful little snippets of gameplay, showing off the environment, the traversal mechanics, and even some passes at combat, which we can check out in this gif.
— 休符 (@kyu_fu) May 17, 2022
Fighting robots is fine and all, but I’m really into how expansive the environments appear to be, and how seamless the movement looks, even at this (presumably) early stage. This maybe sounds like an intangible, but it simply looks fun to play, in the way that smooth, responsive platformers feel “right.” There’s something about the care put into that gliding animation, and the way the little underwater jets bubble up, that hints at a lot of care and attention put into the project. The way the environments unfold and respond recalls a little bit of Sable, too:
— 休符 (@kyu_fu) May 17, 2022
I can’t find many written details about the game online, outside of this (somewhat older) post at Fantastic Worlds, but maybe that’s ok. The developer appears to be very hard at work, updating the feed with new gifs often — as of this writing, the latest little drop is only five hours old. Maybe this is simply a project best perceived visually, in a twitter presence that almost makes you want to forgive twitter for existing.
