Hop & Bop

Hop & Bop is a mascot platformer drawn the way Saturday mornings used to look: fat rounded shapes, one navy ink line around everything, colours turned all the way up, and a squash or a stretch on every single jump, bounce and landing. Bop squashes flat when he lands, stretches long when he leaps and tucks into a blur when he spins. The ground is chunky grass, warm sand and pink candy-rock, the hills behind it are checkered, and the clouds are the size of houses.

The moves are the game. Jumps are as tall as you hold them, you keep a few frames of grace after running off a ledge, and a jump pressed early still fires the moment you land. Bounce off a walking mushroom and you go higher; bounce off a second and a third without touching the ground and each one throws you higher still, with a bonus waiting at five in a row. A tail spin knocks enemies sideways and cracks gem blocks open from the side. Hold down in the air for a ground pound that shatters crates, flattens whatever is standing underneath and fires springs twice as hard. Just do not land on a spiky hedgehog: those want the spin instead.

Eighteen stages run across three worlds, five levels and a boss each. There are moving platforms, planks that fall the moment you stand on them, bouncy mushrooms, rope swings and, on the beach, water deep enough to swim through past a sidestepping crab. Gems are everywhere and a hundred of them buys another heart; three gold stars hide in every stage, and a checkpoint flag is never far away. At the end of each world something much bigger is waiting: a giant mushroom that stomps, a crab king who snips and hides behind his shell, and a bee queen who dives out of the sky. Everything is kept in your browser, so the map remembers your stars.