Title: Chapeau
Genre: Party Game, 3D Platformer
System: Nintendo Switch (also on PC)
Developer|Publisher: Salt Castle Studio
Age Rating: EU 3| US E
Price: UK £12.99| EU €14.99 | AU $22.50|CA $18.89 | US $14.99
Release Date: 31st March 2020
Review code provided by Future Friends Games
In a game titled with the French word for hat, you play as flying hats. While a 3D platformer game involving headwear might remind you of the most recent Mario adventure, it’s quite a different affair. This millinery is a party game for up to four players in split-screen.
Platforms, Hatforms
Chapeau has a movement tutorial that thankfully, all players can participate in at the same time. Movement is about momentum as the hats crawl rather slowly on the ground. Since most objectives are based on landing on people’s heads that’s how you best get around. You dash and flip towards people, there is wall traversal and a stomp for quick landings. Unfortunately there’s no explanation for how the power-ups work (and if you’re playing against bots you might have no idea what they do). Among them is a dog shaped hat that steals coins and an item that temporarily makes the screen black and white for the other players. You can attack other players directly by dashing into them. With three different weight classes for hats, some can really get thrown off balance.
Lava floors but no Wilhelm screams
There are three game modes: The Floor is Lava, Where is Wilhelm and Color Craze. You can have up to four people competing individually or in teams in split-screen. Bots can be added and the time for matches can be changed in thirty second intervals between two and five minutes. Obviously in The Floor is Lava, the floor will become consumed with lava of fluctuating levels (absorbing some people entirely). With the objective to land on people to gain coins, find ones in golden attire to get more money and avoid touching the lava. Alternatively you can deliberately hit opponents so they lose their coins to lava, then dash flip your way to their scattered coins.
In Where is Wilhelm a particular NPC will be shown in the middle (identifiable by skin tone, hair colour, style and their coat colour). The object is to land on this individual preferably before the others and stay seated for a few seconds to get the coins. Combat is particularly important in this one. Though, it seems bots have a bit of advantage in this mode as they seem to often identify the individual immediately.
A Challenge to Colour
Color Craze requires you to colour people by landing on them while having orbs. These orbs can be gained from landing on individuals that have the orbs floating above them. Here you compete for map control which is having the most people in your color. The rainbow person appears from time to time, sitting on them long enough gives you rainbow orbs which will spread your colour to others near who you sat upon. While you might have map control at the end, it’s the coins you earned from it that determine the winner. In any mode it all goes down to how many coins you’ve collected either from keeping and stealing them or maintaining map control.
There are twenty four challenges that can be played alone where you’ve compete against three bots or with one co-op partner against a two bot team. These are simply the different game modes against different styles of hats and increasing difficulty. This is how you unlock most of the things in game. Including the other maps (seven total) and hats with various patterns, colourings, flourishes and trails. There are some other in game achievements besides the challenges.
Function over Form
As the focus is on hats the people roaming around are kept quite simple and near faceless. Certainly there are normal details in the pieces of the generally well laid out maps but it still looks quite basic. The lava in particular is rather poor looking. A positive to that is at least in my experience, I found no performance issues in either three player split screen or handheld.
While the music is nothing remarkable outside of the game. The few tunes do suit the light comedic mood of the game.
Overall
Asides from the rough appearance my only particular problem with the game is the complete lack of online play. While I have no issue finding others to play with locally, many do. This wouldn’t be a good fit for them. The bots do seem a bit unfair in one mode but it’s not too bad. Whereas not having explanations for the power-ups is a weird oversight.
While I don’t always understand indie party games that involve one style of gameplay, Chapeau does enough to make it worth revisiting. With unlockables and three game modes, it’s one of the few review games my little sister has willingly played with me more than once.
Final Verdict: I (and my sister) like it. 
