Redbeard's Recoil is a tile-based puzzle adventure. The recoil from shooting your cannon carries you three tiles backwards—it's the only way to move.

Existential dialectic

Along the way, you'll engage in philosophical dialogue with a nihilistic seagull named Gulliver. This charmingly existential gull disapproves of some of your main driving forces—namely, the collection of coins as a reason to press on. However, Redbeard has a few things to say about having goals at all. Can he teach Gulliver how to strive for some greater purpose? Or will the bird retain his conception of the world as transparently meaningless? Will Redbeard's recoil exist only physically, or also in a flurry of existential despair, as he retreats from the world around him?

Tiled tribulations

Making progress in a discretized world where all motion is necessarily backwards is an unusual endeavor. Many objects are found to exist, in various configurations of blocking and allowing, danger and safety. Redbeard finds himself treading near to Gulliver's amorality, in encounters with creatures reduced to mere stepping stones for self-advancement. While imposing mostly physical constraints, these puzzles also occupy Redbeard's mind as he confronts Dasein, and ultimately, himself.

Personal note from the developer

I'm a solo indie game dev, and this is my first outing. For years, my hobbies have included programming, art, 3d modeling, music composition, and of course playing and thinking about games. It's been so nice to finally have a place to put all of that together. I hope you like it.