My Maitê Review - LadiesGamers

Review code provided with many thanks to TERNOX

Father Daughter

My Maitê is a 2D platformer, plain and simple. The presentation of this game gives the impression it’s some sort of cute father-daughter adventure. This would have been pretty cool, after all, games that focus on parent and child relationships are very uncommon. But once you get past this intriguing premise all you’re really left with is a bog-standard no thrills platformer and that’s a darn shame.

LadiesGamers My Maitê — To the moon and back

Maitê is an intelligent girl who lives on the moon and it’s up to her Dad to jump into space and fetch her across 50 levels. The plot is very bare-bones and doesn’t particularly give any purpose or reason for going on this adventure. The graphics are decent pixel-based sprites.

This is fine but is becoming very common these days. My Maitê biggest issue is you will only see the same space environment with the same white blocky platforms for the entirety of the experience which feels pretty empty like outer space itself I guess.

Run and Jump

The gameplay of My Maitê is very simple. Jump your way to Maitê who is sitting on the moon, carry her on your back and make your way back to Earth then the level is complete. It’s essentially 50 levels of a platformer like fetch quest. Of course, things are not that easy. You need to jump across blocky platforms, avoid spikes, travel through portals, bounce on balloons and of course (and you knew this was coming) avoid buzzsaws.

How buzzsaws work in space, who knows, but it’s a retro-inspired platformer so of course, they are here. If Dad falls into the depths of space or hits a hazard he instantly respawns at the start of the level with no load times which is a nice touch. It’s another of those tricky platformers where you often need to jump on the very edge of the platform to get to another. I didn’t find it particularly rewarding or fun to play. The overall experience just felt like a slog. Much of the platforming has you bouncing offsprings which you have little control over, often not sending you far enough into space to reach the next platformer and straight into the infinite abyss of space or a spike pit.

Other than collecting Maitê there are no other features, no high score, no time attack, no speedrun mode and absolutely no accessibility features. So if you hit the frustrating wall, which I did many times, you can’t skip a level and you are stuck there. With some of the harder levels, I felt like it was pot luck if I finished them as opposed to skills I developed by playing the game.

Conclusion – Good Intentions

I get the impression My Maitê is a game the developer may have made for their child. There may be a cute story behind the game’s creation and I get the impression there are a lot of good intentions behind this project. If the developer was able to enjoy this with their child and gain some warm fuzzy feelings from it then I would consider that mission accomplished.

The trouble is, it’s unlikely the rest of the gaming audience is going to feel this way. With such a simple premise, lacking depth and variety to its gameplay, My Maitê is very unlikely to turn heads. With so many other platformers available at the same price point, My Maitê just feels like another retro platformer in a sea of many other competitors. It’s not terrible, it’s just OK and with so many games competing for players’ precious time, that might not be enough.

Final Verdict: I’m Not Sure

Father Daughter

Run and Jump

Conclusion – Good Intentions

Like this: