Jack and Casie is a puzzle game with a focus on combat.
It follows the journey of Casie, the tough cat(?)girl who does most of the combat
and Jack, the wimpy but useful robot that assists her in various ways.
Inspired by the RE4 attache case, the gameplay centres around inventory management, adding a scrolling sidebar of items. Each of which have different uses.
The combat is complex, especially with the resistances and weaknesses of enemies, but it all means you have to be intuitive to survive.
The pacing gets aggressive, forcing you to sacrifice items if you aren't organised or prepared properly.
Once you get comfortable with the mechanics, you are get to appreciate the art, text and dialogue. And the music, too.
I really like the art, it's very bubbly and pastel-coloured. The way the creator thinks about pixel art is very interesting aswell.
It was a philosphy that pixel art is diminutive and can't fit as much detail as regular art. Because of that, pixel art is limited, but it allows the audience to use their imaginations to fill in the gaps. Meaning, what is represented in pixel art isn't literal.
He contrasts this to modern (contemporary) video game art, which is literal in representation. He doesn't have a problem with that, though.
Unless it's pixel art.
He doesn't like it when someone tries to make pixel art "pretty", because to him pixel art isn't about that. For him, pixel art needs to be creative.
Pixel art should take advantage of being imperfect to raise questions instead of trying to be complete or using good animations to cover up lack of creativity because pixel art is inherently low-res.