Children of the Sun review

pcgamer.com:

What is it? A sniping puzzle game where you telekinetically control your bullet.
Release date April 9, 2024
Expect to pay $15/£12.80
Developer René Rother
Publisher Devolver Digital
Reviewed on Intel Core i7-10750H, 16GB RAM, GeForce RTX 2060
Steam Deck Verified
Link Official site 

There are 11 cultists in front of me, and only one round in my sniper rifle. Not that I need any more to near-instantly clear out entire compounds in this game of supernatural executions and flawlessly executed plans. My primary goal—as an ex-cult-member out for revenge—is to kill scores of anonymous cultists across stark, grungy levels until I can finally take out their leader. All I need is my rifle, one bullet and—oh yes—my telekinetic powers.

Planning is at the heart of Children of the Sun, as you first scout out each level by finding and tagging all the enemies, Far-Cry-style. There’s no stealth element, however, as you’re not actually moving around the level itself but running rings around its perimeter, from a place of safety. Instead, it’s your bullet that gets its, er, casing dirty, as it pings from enemy to enemy in the guts of the level. You have the telekinetic ability to move the bullet after it’s been shot, and the main way you’ll be taking advantage of this is by flinging it from one exploded head to another.

But the order in which you kill enemies is vitally important. It’s the difference between failing the stage or clearing it—and getting your username out of the bowels of the leaderboards. So, who do you shoot first? And where are you going to ride the bullet from there? After you’ve initially fired the gun, you can only see what the bullet sees, so it’s very easy to get into a position where there are no enemies in sight for you to leap to. Miss at any point and you’ll have to restart the level, though mercifully enemies you've tagged stay tagged even when you fail.

As you may have guessed, there’s a heavy puzzle element to Children of the Sun, although certain