Bionic Bay Review | A Physics Platformer Cave Johnson Would Love
A puzzler that bends what you know
WACO, Texas (KWTX) -
Ever since Donkey Kong came out in 1981 there have been numerous additions to the platforming genre. Since there are so many games of this type out there it can be difficult to carve a spot for yourself in the sea of options. Psychoflow studios and Mureena seek to do just that with a unique combination of 2d platformer and physics-based puzzler in Bionic Bay.
As you are dropped into the middle of a mechanical sci-fi waste there is nothing to do but move forward. You will very quickly find that this place is as inhospitable as it is expansive and it will require you to be on your toes mentally and physically. While there are no enemies per say the environment is just as deadly as any monster could be. Luckily, we are not left without our best weapon. Our own wits and agility with maybe a bit of alien tech thrown in here and there. The first and arguably most important mechanic you will learn is the jump and dash. This 1 2 combo of movement will be your bread and butter throughout the game. While I would not put this on the level of precision platformers like Celeste there is no denying the controls feel tight and reactive enough that you can pull off almost any maneuver. With your physical abilities you also get multiple items that give you physics breaking abilities. The first and most used ability you find is the swap tool. This allows you to shift places with a litany of objects littered through the levels. Almost any movable object can be swapped with allowing you to save yourself or reach previously inaccessible areas. Just because the game is 2D don’t think that means you can treat the levels simply though. With the addition of freezing rays lasers that can bounce and burn or even some Cave Johnson approved orange and blue goo the world gives you just as many tools as your own abilities. When all these come together and start to click you truly start to feel what makes this game feel special.
One thing I think is done extremely well here is the balance of difficulty. It toes the line very well between frenetic high speed mobility platformer and methodical physics puzzler. With the game pacing itself between the two forms well you don’t feel like you have to be on edge or in a rush constantly but also don’t spend too long in a single spot trying to rack your brain on a solution to most situations. Most times the only way to learn is by going forward, oftentimes blind and that means dying… a lot. Thankfully the devs have made a fairly forgiving checkpoint system. There is a checkpoint built in before most challenges and I only found myself having to redo a few sections and that was usually due to it being chained together in a way that stopping in the middle could break something. I never once was put back as far as to be off put from playing for a while. While the gameplay is great let’s talk about the world that you are surviving in.
Albert Einstein once said, “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.” By that metric we can call this world absolutely mesmerizing. This world is a masterwork of mechanical function. While desolate and derelict you can see how things in the environment would have worked together in times gone by. Even though things are broken and placement seems sporadic at times, environments still feel cohesive. There are a few downsides to these richly made environments, however. First is that it can sometimes be difficult to figure out which way to go, especially later with a certain ability. With no camera control you are often running blind and may think that the right way to go is down when a small movement of the camera to the right would have revealed the path. Second is that while there is a decent amount of separation between foreground and background elements the player interactable elements can sometimes be hard to discern. I found myself on more than a few occasions reaching for a ledge or rope that I thought was just where I needed to go but was in fact just decor. Thankfully, this does not happen often enough to be a major issue but enough to be warned about. All of these rich environments are wrapped in a perfect pairing of a sci fi soundtrack that feels straight out of synth heaven.
Now as far as the story goes there is one. Mostly that is a joke but to be honest other than the lore dumps you usually get when unlocking a new piece of tech there is not much to the surface level story. There may be more if you look deep into the environment and such but there are no collectables or journal entries to widen the overall story. I don’t think this is necessarily a terrible thing though honestly; I feel like this game only needs a loose amount of firm story to hold it together. Leaving enough of it open to interpretation allows you to fill in the blanks yourself if you think that’s something it needs and doesn’t bog the game down with it if you don’t.
Overall, I honestly think where this game will shine is speedrunning. As the levels are physics-based, there are interesting interactions available that could be fun to watch people bend and break the game to the best of their abilities. There is a mode with online leaderboards with a rotating list of levels that are available for various time periods that are completely different from those in the base game. This adds an infinite amount of replayability and value for people who enjoy competing for the best times and seeing how far they can push the systems.
I had a good time with this game. With its great mobility, tight controls, and fun physics interactions the platforming felt fluid. With difficult sections and levels being tempered by a forgiving checkpoint system the game never felt like a chore to get through while staying interesting enough to draw me forward. The shifting environments never felt stale, and the music kept you feeling like you were truly on an alien planet. With a few small hurdles in lore and mix-ups with interactable elements. This is truly a title that no fan of puzzles or platformers should miss. I give Bionic Bay a 9 out of 10.
Copyright 2025 KWTX. All rights reserved.
