Spinch is a spiralling marriage of psychedelia, precision and rhythm Eurogamer.net If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy. Spinch is a spiralling marriage of psychedelia, precision and rhythm Art attack. Feature by Chris Tapsell Reviews Editor Updated on 18 Sep 2020 EGX is here! This time it's in the rather unique form of PAX Online x EGX Digital, but we're still covering it like usual. That means we'll be running a few short articles like this throughout the week, featuring our impressions from some of the most interesting, unique, or just personal favourite games we've tried from the show floor (yes, there's a show floor!). Last up was Neon Noodles. This time: Spinch! Spinchs at PAX Online X EGX Digital Developer: Queen Bee Games Publisher: Akapura Games Platform: Demo on PC Availability: Out now on Switch, PC, Mac There's a strange familiarity to the art of Spinch, a twisting, mesmerizing little indie platformer. It reminds me of people I know and knew, and their phenomenal but often wasted, underused, or underappreciated talent. It reminds me of drawn curtains, musty dark-green sofas, neon yellow lighters and early era Spotify ads at four in the morning. It reminds me of YouTube binges, of university, and before that college. It reminds me of friends, basically, fictional and real, and the kind of art they'd make as they spiralled in and out of the highs and lows of their life. Spinch has a sensational sense of vibe. It's a simple, almost rudimentary platformer at its core: you can run, jump, and dash, and you have that kind of sticky grippiness to walls when you hit them mid air, and that's kind of it. It's incredibly close to classic Mario Bros. games, precise, frantic and agile, with a little overworld and levels called 1-1 and a boss at the end of each section. Where it differs is style, opting for literal psychedelia over the sort of implied, psychedelic-adjacency of Mario and the gang. You play as a Spinch - or maybe your name is actually Spinch; not sure, doesn't matter - and you hop and skip through this game collecting your offspring and your cousins, while avoiding colours, swirling and pulsing arcs of danger, wherever you find them. The backgrounds are weird, the sounds are weird, the enemies are weird. It's the kind of mutating, excessive vibrancy and creativity that you find in the latter half of the '90s, in cartoons like Aaahh!!! Real Monsters, Cow and Chicken, and Ren and Stimpy - but maybe if you dropped the TV and got stuck with the contrast up too high. Watch on YouTube It all pulls together with sound. Jesse Jacobs' art and James Kirkpatrick's music merge in rhythm and sync, alongside the movements, even, of enemies that you set in motion yourself. Play for a few minutes and you're in, engulfed in the choral, symphonic, rainbow swells of colour and beat and challenge. It's a wonderful little thing, nostalgic and novel, simple but vivid. Art from artists. Become a Eurogamer subscriber and get your first month for £1 Get your first month for £1 (normally £3.99) when you buy a Standard Eurogamer subscription. Enjoy ad-free browsing, merch discounts, our monthly letter from the editor, and show your support with a supporter-exclusive comment flair! Support us View supporter archive More Features Digital Foundry Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090: a new level in graphics performance The Digital Foundry video review - and how the new GPU champion delivers for 4K 120fps gaming. 12 Feature Evercore Heroes wants to wind people up the right way "There's less rage at them, because they didn't end your fun." Feature What games get wrong about horses And what they could do about it. 34 Feature Shout out to all the Overwatch supports - where would we be without you? Merci. 55 Latest Articles Preview Football Manager's new Console edition is the best you'll get without a PC Getting Touch-right. Splatoon 3 Amiibos will be out next month Ink-coming! 3 Fans think Phil Spencer's shelf is teasing the Xbox Game Pass streaming box UPDATE: Xbox confirms old Keystone prototype. 59 Modder dives into Demon's Souls files following PS5 jailbreak, discovers fabled Ring of the Chieftain Who knows what's nexus? 4 Supporters Only Premium only Off Topic: Take a minute to appreciate Cookin' with Coolio's incredible scallops recipe. What a great book. Premium only Off Topic: Reading City of Glass in comic form "Where exactly am I going?" Premium only Off Topic: Il Buco is a transporting film about a really big hole Underlands. Off-Topic Netflix handled Sandman brilliantly It was Dreamy. 9 Buy things with globes on them And other lovely Eurogamer merch in our official store! Explore our store