Of course, being a spider means getting around on webs, and the fact that Webbed nails its mobility systems is immediately obvious. With no chance of rescuing him on your lonesome, you’ll need to bring together the insect kingdoms of your forest home for a single shot rescue mission straight into the heart of the bowerbird’s domain. Webbed casts you as a jumping spider whose only problem in life is that her gloriously colourful mate has just been kidnapped by a frankly terrifying bowerbird. Webbed is chock full of unique moments and joyful asides, but it’s the game’s success at the ground level of platforming and movement that makes it one of the best 2D platformers in recent memory. If the basic ideas underpinning a game also happen to be the most pleasurable aspect, then every slight variation, every moment of experimentation, stands to feel that much sweeter. There’s a reason a modest scope with a razor-sharp focus on fundamentals is often a winning combination in game design.
