Skylar and Plux: Adventure on Clover Island is a 3D Action Platformer from Right Nice Games and Grip Digital. Released for Steam, Xbox One and PS4 on May 19, 2017.The game is an homage towards previous 3D platforming games during the early 2000.
You play as Skylar Lynx, an amnesiac anthropomorphic feline with a robotic arm and a companion owl, Plux. The two are on a quest to restore a fuse stolen by the devious CRT. The CRT have also caged various Lo’as, which Skylar can free by gathering gems.
Tropes in this game:
- All for Nothing: The CRT gets hit with this hard when Skylar destroys his generator with the wrecking ball.
- Amnesiac Hero: Skylar gets her memory wiped out when she was held captive by the CRT who plans to turn her into a weapon, after a failed attempt on stealing a fuse. Fortunately for her, she escaped with the help of her right sentient robotic arm.
- Bad Boss:
- After you destroy Dave and Steve the first two swarmbots you meet, the CRT calls them useless.
- Cave Behind the Falls: One of the Lo'as in Syphon Valley can be found behind a waterfall.
- Fairy Companion: Plux acts like one by hovering beside Skylar like an humming bird, despite his size.
- Follow the Money: You can gradually restore lost health from collecting gems scattered around Clover Island. They are mainly spent to free Lo'as from their cages which the Elder will health upgrades in exchange.
- The Goomba: The swarmbots are the common mooks that can be almost everywhere in the game. They bark like dogs and mainly attack you by pouncing. There are even several achievements based on how many you've killed.
- Gotta Rescue Them All: You free the captured Lo'as by spending 200 gems for each cage. The Elder will increase your health capacity after you have freed a certain number of them.
- Grappling-Hook Pistol: The Grappling Beam installed in Skylar's arm allows her swing on certain targets or pull platforms out.
- Ground Pound: Skylar does this by diving to the ground, landing on her robotic arm and makes a small shockwave around her.
- Heart Container: The Elder will award you with a bonus health when you free enough Lo'as. Collecting gems can gradually replenish lost health.
- Heroic Mime: Skylar is completely silent, which also means she never grunts.
- Hoist by Their Own Petard: You can use the Magnetic Glove to intercept rockets fired by Missle Turrets and throw them back at anyone or you can grab a Gatling Turret and clear waves of enemies with it by forcing it to shoot its comrades.
- Hour of Power: All of Skylar's gadgets have time limits, but they have a quick Cooldown time when not used for a brief time.
- The jetpack only has limited fuel to provide Skylar to glide.Using the rocket jump and high jump completely depletes the meter with every use.
- The Time Orb is always timed whenever it is used.
- An time limit will appear on the Magnetic Glove when Skylar is holding enemies and rockets with it.
- Industrial Ghetto: The entire place has been flooded with polluted water in Dinky Dank Tank. Some of its contaminated water is exhausted out into Siphon Valley.
- Invulnerable Civilians: The Lo'as are impervious to any physical violence, as trying to hit them will only make them jiggle a bit. The worst you can do to them is by flattening them like pancakes with a Ground Pound, however they will quick restore to their original and still act like nothing has happened to them.
- Light and Mirrors Puzzle: A laser and mirror puzzle to be exact. You manipulate the path of the laser by adjusting the mirrors with the Magnetic Glove.
- Malicious Misnaming: The CRT wasn't happy when Plux deliberately interpreted his initial as "Cranky Robot Turd" as a way to talk back him. Then CRT immediately hangs up the transmission when he couldn't argue back at Plux.
- More Dakka: The Gatling Turret is robot enemies mounted with 2 machine guns that rotates on a single axis. One of the best ways of killing hordes of enemies is to grab one of them with the Magnetic Glove, and clear the crowd while they involuntarily gun down their comrades.
- One-Hit-Point Wonder: All the robot mooks can be taken care of with a single punch from Skylar's robotic arm.
- Palmtree Panic: You can find a beach by going left when you enter Bouncy Bay. Due to the abundance of bouncy mushrooms is how the beach got is name.
- Psychic Link: According to one of the Lo'a, the Elder can communicate to all of them with the use of some mysterious powers.
- Rise to the Challenge: A rising lava section happens, when you destroy the generator with the wrecking ball.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: In the subplot, Plux keeps telling Skylar that his father is coming back, but in CRT's area, Plux says that his father is never going to return.
- Shout-Out: Combined with cringe-worthy censoring.
- And before that:
- Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Palecreek Peak is the mountainous snowy region in Clover Mountain.
- Springy Spores: The cratered mushrooms give Skylar extra height when she bounces on it. The mushrooms are mostly green, but they turn blue in cold climates. Rocket jumping on them gives Skylar extra speed, allowing her to bounce further and is crucial for freeing one of the Lo'as in Bouncy Bay.
- Squashed Flat: You can squash all Lo'as flat like pancakes with a ground pound. They don't seem to mind it at all, because they are impervious to physical harm.
- Super Drowning Skills: Explained by Skylar's robotic arm that felines hate water and the arm is too dense to keep her buoyant. However, when Skylar falls into quicksand or bodies of water deep enough to submerge her, she gets electrocuted.
- Time Master:
- After obtaining the Time Orb, Skylar is able to slow down time around her for a limited time. This gives her a significant edge in combat as none of her enemies are immune to it, and strangely enough, Plux isn't affect by the time slowing effects at all.
- If she is near a time pedestal, Skylar can activate it with the Time Orb. The time pedestals can shift time between the present to the past within the green energy sphere it generates, changing the environment in the process.
- Tropical Island Adventure: As the title suggests, the game is set on the titular tropical island.
- TV Head Robot: The swarmbots and the CRT have a computer moniter as a face.
- Villainous Breakdown: The CRT gets one when the duo destroys the reactor with the wrecking ball. He begins to mumble unintelligible words when he realizes all his work has gone to waste.
- Weird Moon:
- Clover Island is located on the Ocean moon of the yellow gas giant Lo. How it can sustain life seems to be associated with a device called the Syphon built by the Progenitors.
- There is also a Desert Moon orbiting planet Lo, too. It appears red in the skies of the Ocean Moon.
- Zerg Rush: Expect to face hordes of swarmbots in later parts of the game.
