Where has the Sun gone? The people on Earth pray for the end of night. It is up to me to find the Sun.

This week I decided to try out the recently released platformer 6180 the moon, a game created by South Korean Indie Game Studios, Turtle Cream and PokPoong Games. I came across this game from watching Totalbiscuit play the first 15 minutes of it on his channel. It really caught my attention and I decided to take a closer look into it to see what it offers further on in the game. I wasn’t disappointed.

In 6180 the moon you play as the Moon who is in search of the Sun which seems to have disappeared. As the people on Earth cry out for the end of night, the Moon sets out on a journey stopping at Earth, Venus, and Mercury as you seek out the Sun.

This game is a platformer that has an interesting mechanic. In most platformers if you fall off an edge into a void you die. In this game, the top and the bottom of the screen are connected, so you can jump and come up from the bottom of the screen, or you can fall and come out the top of the screen. You must use this to your advantage; sometimes having to fall off an edge to get to a higher point or jumping so you can bounce off a lower point. But be careful, if you make the slightest of wrong moves you can find yourself shattered on a spike, so you need to be quite aware where you will end up if you jump. When you start the game it takes a little while to get used to get used to this but as you progress you learn to think of the bottom half of the screen as more of the top of the screen.

As you travel from planet to planet to find the Sun, more obstacles and mechanics are introduced in the game. You start out with simple platforms and spikes, and then later the game introduces bounce blocks, disappearing/reappearing blocks, moving platforms, and also falling spike stars. Midway through the game you are also introduced to drops of light which were apparently dropped by the Sun. When you activate them, you are able to pause mid jump allowing you to get though some long dangerous paths as well as save yourself from hitting a spike. You are limited on how many are in a level and they can only be used once. So choose carefully.

As you progress you get more and more used to the wrap around screen, some of the later levels don’t seem as challenging as they could be. But right when you think you mastered it, they change it up on you. When you finish the main story, you unlock a new mode for the game which has you going back though all the levels backwards. And if you think that is no big deal, they also change up the “gravity” as you may say. So instead of resting on top of the platforms, you now rest on the bottom of the platforms. If you jump you go down and if you go off an edge, you fall up. This of course takes a while to get used to because you got so used to the old way it was. Also it messes with you at first because you don’t expect to fall up. I think this is a nice challenge they added to the game.

6180 the moon is a simple, fun platformer with a short, but charming story. The use of the top to bottom wrap around screen makes the game unique and fun to play and just when you think you mastered it they flip it around and challenge you with the harder mode after the main story. And while the art style is simple it works for the game and the music adds a lovely and calming atmosphere to the game that goes well with the story.

All in all this game is a fun take on a platformer and well worth the low price. Definitely a pickup for any platformer fan out there.

You can get it for PC or Mac on Steam