Review of “Children of the Sun” – one chance to rule them all

That’s how you can simply summarize the essence of the new indie canape Children of the Sun, in which you have to hit as many as nine people with one shot. Does it look like an action movie? Or maybe a stealth shooter? The genre may surprise you: it’s actually a puzzle game.

• Platform: PC (Steam)
• Publication date: April 9, 2024
• Developer: Rene Rother
• Publisher: Devolver Digital
• Genre: Puzzle shooter
• Czech localization: No
• Multiplayer: No
• Download data: 4GB
• Game time: 6+ hours
• Price: $14.99

Each level is a new puzzle, each level can give you trouble. Your heroine with a broken soul, but also a keen eye, is on the path to revenge. She takes revenge on those who were closest to her and those who should have protected her. The story is ultimately not that important and very sparse – your goal is to kill the leadership of the cult responsible for the death of your family. A girl with a strange grinning mask on her face goes around the places where she is looking for cult members, and at gunpoint kills the entire group with one shot.

Is this impossible? If you’re looking for a realistic sniper shooting simulator, be sure to look elsewhere. “Children of the Sun” uses shooting more as an original mechanic for solving de facto logical problems.

At the beginning of each level, you will examine the scene in detail and assess the situation. Ideally, your goal is to find all the enemies and tag them. But you only move in a certain circle – you can zoom in on everything thanks to the scope on your rifle, but if a cultist is rummaging through a closet and his body is hidden by a wall, you will have to find him “on the run”. Once you pull the trigger, there’s no turning it back. Each successful hit on a helpless body stops your shot, and you can inspect the surroundings through it and continue on your way. You are a metal bullet capable of endless killing. You don’t have to hold your breath, you don’t have to close your eyes. You just fly through the air and bounce off soft tissues like a pinball until you turn them all into rag dolls.

Children of the Sun is a memorable game that doesn’t use many words, instead speaking through obnoxious short cutscenes with very aggressive graphics and loud sounds. When it comes to some lyrics, they usually sound like a nightmare. This is what the game itself is de facto: the darkness that accompanies certain levels and the exploding heads of sectarians look like something from a bad dream. Not everyone gets used to them, but they are important for finishing.

Every hit, every level completed will delight you. The further you climb, the more enemies there are, they are more cleverly hidden and have magical, impenetrable barriers on their heads and around their bodies. New mechanics are also added – for example, the game turns into a kind of variation of the movie “Wanted”, and you bend the trajectory of a bullet. You’ll have to shoot from a greater distance to “charge” your shot, plan more accurately, and react faster. And you rejoice when everything works out. Like the titular sniper, you will relish the death in front of you as you shoot nameless people and animals. Killing becomes a game.

Go kill and become a hero

There is no need to look deeply for anything in “Children of the Sun.” We’re talking about a seven-hour game in which you could easily focus only on individual puzzles – but you’ll end up losing a lot of money. Using a common video game theme (like go kill hundreds of people and keep thinking of yourself as a good hero) that leads to something unpleasantly satisfying is refreshing.

The scoring for individual levels, which you always see at the end, helps a lot. You get points for hitting different parts of your enemies’ bodies, as well as for completing an entire action quickly, for killing two cultists at the same time, for blowing up cars, and many other variables. So you can repeat each level until you pass out, improve and compare yourself with other players. In most cases, you will also receive some kind of hidden task, cryptically described with an effective sentence like “The virus is in their heads.” If you manage to unlock it and complete the mysterious task, you will feel good again.

Children of the Sun is the work of a small team of developers led by Rene Rother and supported by Devolver Digital, a publisher that is increasingly signing deals for interesting indie games. This one isn’t perfect either. A minor drawback to the beauty are the unnecessary mini-games that sometimes disrupt the narrative. Or the fact that some levels aren’t as fluid as they might seem at first glance, limiting replayability. But the talent of the developers and the originality of their ideas are undeniable.