Under my reviewing microscope today is Bionic Bay, a sci-fi puzzle platformer developed by Psychoflow Studio and published by Kepler Interactive. Bionic Bay certainly subscribes to the “show, don’t tell” philosophy of game design in that it doesn’t outright tell you anything at all. Instead, you’re expected to closely watch everything Bionic Bay shows you, and then use what you learn from doing that to experiment with your surroundings and figure out how to get past obstacles while platforming. Puzzle platform games like Bionic Bay are outside of my usual wheelhouse for several reasons, some of which I’ll explain here.

I tend to dislike puzzle games because, put simply, they usually make me feel increasingly stupid. I don’t like being made to feel stupid, and the brief sense of euphoria that puzzle games typically provide when I do finally figure out one of their challenges isn’t always enough to make me want to keep playing. In all honesty, that’s one of the two reasons I ultimately stopped playing Bionic Bay. The other reason is that I encountered accessibility issues that I might have been able to overcome, but I didn’t feel like the payoff I might get was worth doing that.

Bionic Bay is intended to be played with a controller, and for good reason. A keyboard and mouse control setup likely won’t be as ideal for the platforming challenges within Bionic Bay compared to a controller. Bionic Bay requires quite a lot of precision platforming, much of the time, and that’s the accessibility issue I encountered frequently enough that I decided to stop playing. If you have issues with dexterity when it comes to precision-platforming games like I do, then I’d suggest you stay away from Bionic Bay. I always listen to my body when any game is physically difficult for me to play.

Even though Bionic Bay’s platforming gave me so much trouble, one major point in its favor is that Bionic Bay is extremely generous with checkpoints. If you happen to die at any point during a level, chances are you’ll respawn pretty much exactly where you were just before you died, or at least within a few feet of that point. That, combined with the fact that Bionic Bay loads almost instantly in my experience, makes the process of trial and error in Bionic Bay much more bearable than it otherwise would be. Bionic Bay reminds me somewhat of Hotline Miami in this sense.

I said in my opening spiel that Bionic Bay contains sci-fi elements. Those elements are represented by a teleportation device you acquire not too long after starting Bionic Bay’s campaign. You can walk up to many objects in your environment, hit them to place a beacon on them, and then switch positions with that object at any time so long as you’re within range. You can even do this while in midair. This allows you to do things like, for example, teleporting a nearby box so that it falls onto and harmlessly detonates bombs that are blocking your path.

You’ll have to be careful about using your teleportation device, however. You can be crushed to death by things you teleport if they’re heavy enough, or if the sudden absence of an object you teleported causes other things to fall on top of you. Bionic Bay reminds me quite a bit of Portal in this sense, albeit with none of Portal’s wit, charm, or sense of personality. If you die in Bionic Bay as often as I have, at least you won’t also have GLaDOS mocking you for your failures. I suppose that could be a plus, depending on how you look at it.

Another potential accessibility issue I encountered in Bionic Bay might be just a “me” thing, but I’m going to mention it here just in case it’s not. When my character in any game falls from a great height, I (somehow) physically feel as though I’m falling with them. I don’t really know how to explain that any better, but I do know it’s a very unpleasant sensation. If you experience anything similar to that, Bionic Bay will likely give you trouble because you’ll be doing quite a lot of jumping and falling. It probably doesn’t help that I’m also terrified of heights.

If you’re better at puzzle games and precision platforming challenges than I am, and the accessibility concerns I’ve mentioned won’t bother you, I think you might like Bionic Bay. You might want to wait until it’s on sale, though, especially if games of this ilk aren’t in your normal wheelhouse. If you don’t tick all those boxes, however, I’d recommend skipping Bionic Bay. Even though Bionic Bay isn’t really “my jam,” so to speak, I enjoyed quite a lot of my time with it, other than when I encountered accessibility problems. I’d imagine the same will be true for much of our readership.

A PC review key for Bionic Bay was provided by Kepler Interactive for the purposes of this review.

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Bionic Bay

$19.99

7.5

Score

7.5/10

Pros

• Interesting sci-fi elements.
• Very generous checkpoints.
• Engaging core gameplay loop.

Cons

• Core gameplay loop could present several accessibility concerns.