Below Kryll is certainly one of the most under the radar games to come out this year (here's a Steam Link as it doesn't even have a page on Giant Bomb yet). While it's been floating around both on and off of Steam for a while, it hit official release back in September with virtually no fanfare. This post is going to run a bit long because if I don't gush about it then I suspect nobody else will and it really does deserve far, far more attention than it's gotten (which is more or less none at all).
The extreme degree to which Below Kryll fell under the radar isn't really surprising; I stumbled upon it by chance while it was still on Steam Greenlight, it has had more or less nothing in the way of advertising and coverage, the ability to make a free demo account is available via the client on their website but not on Steam (I have no idea as to why this is the case), and the name doesn't even give much of a hint as to what type of game it is. That said, it really is a shame that it is so completely unknown as Below Kryll really is rather fantastic in many regards. This game is a 2D action platformer where the vast, vast majority of the content is made by the playerbase; all of the stages made by players are interconnected in one giant, vertically-oriented world and new enemies, traps, and obstacles appear on lower levels (i.e. certain objects are locked to level creators on higher floors and are available for use in created levels when choosing deeper rooms so new players and level creators starting on the surface aren't overwhelmed). The actual platforming is pretty well-made too as it's normally a bit on the slippery and fluid side of things, but you gain quite a few abilities which let you slow down or completely stop your moment on the fly.
While it currently has less variety than Super Mario Maker in terms of raw 'stuff', Below Kryll has a ton of features people have been asking for in Super Mario Maker. It's pretty easy to search for various levels and players can add tags, comments, and votes; new, unranked levels are clearly marked and players are even incentivized to play them as doing so grants a larger reward upon completion than usual. In addition to simply clearing a level, players can collect all of the golden shurikens in it (of which there can be anywhere from 1 to 5 depending on how many the level creator decided to add), which results in a large boost in the amount of experience and gold gained from the clear. As the map is fully interconnected, players can easily make 'sets' of levels by building them next to each other and it's not uncommon to see recurring characters used by multiple creators. Speaking of characters, Below Kryll also allows for the addition of NPC's and plot triggers, so it is fully possible to make a level with little to no combat which instead focuses on plot or puzzles. Players can edit their own stages at any time, though they do still need to be able to actually clear their stage after editing it for the changes to be saved. Not only do checkpoints exist, but you can tie the 'state' of enemies and other objects directly to a checkpoint via a color-coded aura system; enemies and objects will respawn or otherwise go back to their initial state when a player either respawns at or warps back to the checkpoint they are tied to, but it's also possible to add a degree of permanence to the states of enemies and objects while still having checkpoints by simply choosing not to tie them to a checkpoint. While players can't directly interact, there is global chat and you can see 'shadow' versions of other players going through their own instances of the levels so there is very much a community element. Lastly, there are all sorts of easily-implementable switches and triggers built into the editor, so players can do things like making a door open when a specific enemy dies or have enemies spawn when the player talks to a specific NPC.
In short, Below Kryll is an incredibly well-polished action platformer based upon interconnected user-made content and it really is a shame that nobody seems to even know it exists.
Honorable mentions go to Environmental Station Alpha, which has garnered at least some degree of attention and is far and away the best new metroidvania I've played in years (Axiom Verge wins aesthetically, but ESA definitely trumps it in terms of gameplay and especially exploration factor), and to Isbarah, which is a fun and surprisingly unique bullet hell platformer hybrid boss rush, but bullet hells have always been a niche genre and the fact that Isbarah takes the form of a platformer and not a shoot-em-up just makes it an even more niche game than usual, so at least its under the radar status isn't exactly a surprise.
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