Poinpy came up in one of the various end-of-year wrapup podcasts I binged through while on vacation. All I needed to hear was that the solo-dev behind one of 2015’s best indie games Downwell was back with a new game. Then I looked it up and saw that despite being published by Devolver it was only available through Netflix’s weirdo games . . thing . . and I was immediately seriously discouraged.

Luckily it looks like they’ve figured their stuff out over at Netflix since original launch of Netflix Games, and the service Actually Works, which is way more than I can say about when I tried to play Into the Breach.

Downwell was a tight crunchy GameBoy-aesthetic action platformer about going down and bouncing on stuff. It’s incredibly well-regarded in game-enjoyer circles, it periodically gets called out on Game Maker’s Toolkit as being a stellar example of how simple it can be to merge two common game aspects and get something wholly unique.

Downwell merges jumping and shooting to the point that they’re one button and effectively act as a single cohesive mechanic. Press once to jump. Press or hold in midair to shoot down. Run out of ammo and you’re in free-fall. Bounce on an enemy to reload midair. Absolute masterclass in simplistic yet highly compelling design, and it’s endlessly replayable bite-sized game that has not left my iPad since release.

Poinpy is, unsurprisingly, more of the same from a game design perspective. It’s a game about going up and bouncing on things. It’s got pretty basic mobile game slingshot controls, with a tap to slam down. But despite being simple it’s incredibly well polished. You bounce through five biomes, collecting fruits and veggies to fill increasingly complicated recipes demanded by a voracious blue monster chasing you up the screen.

Aesthetically it’s the complete polar opposite of Downwell, hyper-cute character designs, super colorful, bubbly music and sound effects, and it’s wonderful.

It’s a little less challenging than Downwell, but that’s a good thing because Downwell was crazy hard.

While I haven’t messed with it much, the post-game endless challenge mode is . . a little weird. It eats most of your equipment slots (permanent unlocks) and cranks the difficulty way up. It might still be good as a pick up and play game, but I’m deeply concerned about it being locked behind a Netflix subscription.

All in all, highly recommended if you’ve got a Netflix sub.