Nimbus



Created by Noumenon Games, Nimbus is a game on the PC that mixes aspects from a variety of games, including puzzle solving, racing against the clock (and, many times, deadly obstacles), barrel cannons, and secret stage exits, among other things. The objective of each stage is to solve various puzzles as quickly as possible without becoming stranded the ground or being killed. The ship does not propel itself in any way. The player will need to find ways to accelerate to gain/maintain height and speed whilst avoiding (most often lethal) traps or bumping into walls, which will considerably decrease their speed. There is an online leaderboard for players who enjoy competing for the lowest possible times.

Reviews for this game have been very positive and there are many plans for this game's future. It can be purchased from Steam for $10. There is also a downloadable demo for those who want to try the game out first.


 * Bonus Stage: The scrapyard. Accessible immediately after the credits stage.
 * The Christmas levels. Unlike the Scrapyard levels, these alter your global average time.
 * Crowning Music of Awesome
 * Difficulty Levels: Easy (infinite amount of continues from checkpoints), Normal (5 continues from checkpoints), and Hard (0 continues from checkpoints, rendering them only useful for launching and forcing the player to finish stages in one go)
 * Damsel in Distress: The girl ship.
 * Ear Worm: The entire soundtrack. It's available for download here on Noumenon Games' blog, but is missing some tracks. A third party will have to re-upload the entire OST elsewhere. here.
 * Excuse Plot: The girl ship has been kidnapped by Goleyeath! Are you a bad enough ship to rescue her?
 * Fake Difficulty: The left-right controls are inverted, which is hard to get used to on its own even in late game, but, when moving at fast enough speeds, the controls start working in a manner where left=left and right=right until the player slows down again.
 * Mini Game Credits: It's actually its own stage with a goal and coin to collect.
 * Nintendo Hard
 * Spikes of Doom: Narrow spike mazes are frequent.
 * Scenery Porn
 * Secret Level
 * That One Boss: There's only one boss and he's pretty difficult.
 * That One Level: This could be said about many of the levels (especially on Hard Mode), given the nature of the game, but special mention goes to some of the bonus levels, most notably Scrapyard 4-3, which has a difficulty rating of 12 stars (only one level in the game has the previously thought to be maximum difficulty of ten stars and it, too, is a bonus stage). The creators stated that these levels were too poor to make it into the game, so at least they're acknowledging their difficulty.
 * That One Sidequest: Collecting coins makes certain stages much harder than what they'd normally be due to some of the requirements in order to get them. Collecting them unlocks new ships and trails.
 * Unexpected Gameplay Change: As previously stated, there is only one boss fight in the entire game.