Children of the Sun [Review]
Devolver Digital’s stylish sniper puzzle game hits the mark.
Credit: René Rother / Devolver Digital
The Girl has been wronged by the Cult, and now she’s out for blood. She’ll murder every single member, leaving her tormentor, the murderous Leader, for last. In René Rother's brilliant sniper shooter puzzle game Children of the Sun, you are the Girl, and you will get your revenge.
The Girl is armed with a scoped sniper rifle and one bullet. Thankfully, she has telekinetic abilities that’ll help you make the most out of your single shot. In each level, you use the rifle scope to mark each target, then fire. When the bullet hits a target, it stops, time slows down, and you’re able to re-aim and fire the bullet in a new direction, to pinball your single shot through all the soon to be dead cultists.
Credit: René Rother / Devolver Digital
Over the course of the game, it’ll introduce more abilities to the Girl’s arsenal. She can dilate time to nudge and curve the bullet’s trajectory. Later, hitting two cultists in their glowing weak spots allows her to slow down then re-aim while the bullet’s in the air. Finally, she learns to increase the speed of the bullet to allow her to pierce body armor.
Each level in Children of the Sun is a puzzle where you must carefully plan your sequence of kills around the environment to succeed. Cultists aren’t always visible from your vantage point and you won’t see them until you can re-aim after hitting a target. To kill armored enemies, you need to have enough range to get your bullet to full speed. Psychic enemies deflect and force you to react. Sometimes you’ll need to strategically use exploding gas tanks or even birds to your advantage. Getting it right is a rush and it feels even better when you get to see your bullet’s path in a top-down map as your score is tallied.
Credit: René Rother / Devolver Digital
I regularly scored somewhere around 2,500th place and I have no idea how the top scorers on the leaderboard got the number of points they did. While I won’t go chasing high scores, I might go back and try to get the secret achievement in every level since I only found a handful. The levels’ title screens each have a short, cryptic clue to point you in the right direction.
The game’s art is striking with its stylized blue, pink, and yellow color palette. Children of the Sun’s 3D has an angular, pulpy look, with the color and harsh lighting giving the world a surreal look and putting you in the Girl’s head. At times, I was pleasantly reminded of Suda51’s Killer7. The game’s UI is spare and attractive, in yellow and white with Gothic German typography. The game’s music and sound design is also outstanding. I loved details like having percussive accompaniment to the Girl’s run. I played the game on Steam Deck, connected to a TV. It performed perfectly in the console’s default 1280x720 resolution, but pushing it up to 4K or even 1080p caused stuttering and unpleasant framerate drops.
Credit: René Rother / Devolver Digital
Children of the Sun tells its story through short 2D animated flashback cutscenes, presented in a visual style different from the gameplay. They’re shattered fragments of the Girl’s memory that gradually piece together her history and the trauma that drives her forward. This art is awesome; I’m going to have to look into artist Nil Vendrell’s other work.
It took around 8 or 9 hours to beat all the levels and I felt the game’s length was perfect. The game gives you enough time with each new game mechanic and gives you enough of a playground to experiment with using all of the Girl’s abilities in sync without ever getting to feel tiresome or repetitive. The final levels are especially challenging as final tests of strategy and skill.
Children of the Sun isn’t just a game, it’s an experience. Don’t sleep on this one. Play it with some good headphones on and lose yourself in it.
Children of the Sun is available now on Steam for PC.
Overall Score: 9/10
Played on: Steam Deck
