“Big Hops” is a 3D platformer that was crowdfunded via Kickstarter in May of 2025 where it surpassed its initial goal by a decent amount but without hitting all of its stretch goals. The game subsequently released in January of 2026, in a stable state no less that was largely free from glitches and jank from the get go, which is an unfortunate rarity these days. From May 2025 to January 2026 is one of the faster and smoother crowdfunding –> release timelines I’ve seen, but that can be attributed to the fact that developer/publisher Luckshot Games had already been working on the project for years prior to release.
A little while ago, I found myself jonesing for a new 3D platformer; one with that classic platformer feel but also one that, preferably, made some attempt at innovation as well. I tried a couple of options from the last year or two, like the much-hyped “Demon Tides,” which was decently fun to play but annoyed me too much with its clunky camera and sense of “humor” to continue beyond the demo. Then, I landed on “Big Hops,” and my old school-x-new school 3D platformer itch was scratched perfectly.
You play as a cute and innocent little frog named Hop who yearns for adventure but gets much more than he bargained for. He winds up being abducted by a mysterious supernatural dude named Diss who forces him to collect dark drips, which are your standard 3D platformer collectible, like the moons, stars, or catshines from the “Mario” franchise. While you’re carrying out this collectathon thread, you’re also trying to gather air ship parts to make your way back home in spite of Diss’s insistence to the contrary, which gives you a pretty neat dual motivation to explore the game’s three main worlds. Each one is pretty large and has a good number of things to do and secrets to uncover, plus simple but engaging enough plotlines with likable NPCs.
Like just about any platformer there’s plenty of Nintendo inspiration to be found, but I was thrilled to see the influence of, amongst others, “Sly Cooper;” it’s about time we got more “Sly Cooper”-inspired games. But unlike a lot of throwback games, “Big Hops” is considerably more than just a mishmash of influences. It brings plenty of its own ideas to the table, like cramming in more ways to use your froggy tongue than you can shake a stick at or providing you with all kinds of fruits and veggies that change how you move through the world. A green apple gives you a spot to cling to, a mushroom helps you bounce high, a bubble fruit sends little bubbles through the air that you can zip between, and many more. These little throwables are well-placed throughout the game worlds to empower your traversal and they are flexible enough that you can make it past certain obstacles in multiple ways by thinking outside the box. What’s more, the game also gives you an upgradable backpack to store items in. This means that you can bring these throwables with you, allowing you to cary them from anywhere all the way across the game world to use wherever you want. Now, I’m not about to start any “is ‘Big Hops’ an immersive sim?” discourse, but the creativity allowed by these throwables does certainly create the room and flexibility for far more creativity and emergent gameplay than 3D platformers are usually able to provide, which gives the game a serious X-factor.
On top of that, the movement feels tight and responsive, allowing precision platforming and lots of ways to build momentum and pick up speed. The level design is strong throughout, providing obstacles that remain challenging even though they can be surmounted in multiple ways. There’s a good amount of variety too. There are only three main worlds, but each has multiple sub areas that feel quite different from each other. For example, the first big world has desert areas, a town with a good amount of built-in verticality, an entire sewer section (which provided quite a difficulty spike for me and was more challenging than anything that followed), and a big headquarters area to climb and sneak around in. And that’s without even getting into the optional challenge rooms and the void levels between main worlds, which are all fun as well.
There aren’t any elements where “Big Hops” drops the ball in a major way, but there is some unevenness, some areas that could be tighter, and some potential that I wouldn’t go so far as to call wasted but instead some potential wasn’t delivered on as much as it could have been. For example, some of the throwables are significantly more interesting and useful than others, with only one or two that outright feel awkward to use. The trinkets are a similar situation. Every time you collect enough mini dark bits to add up to a full dark drip, you get to choose a new trinket between two random options. This is a really neat idea and there are a bunch of trinkets that make a major difference and change how things feel in a fun way, like a trinket that increases the space in your backpack or one that reduces friction while sliding. Unfortunately, there are far fewer interesting trinkets than there are opportunities to collect these trinkets and, by the final world, every single time I was presented with two trinket options, I found myself not wanting either of them. Overall, I’m definitely still glad this trinket system is part of the core gameplay loop, and I imagine a sequel would be able to dial in a more uniformly satisfying batch of trinkets without the chaff.
In a similar spot of being a nice idea but not being implemented as well as it could have been is the game’s economy. Throughout your journey, you also collect coins, flower petals, and bugs, which each act as sorts of currency to be used for specific purposes. The bugs are rewarding to hunt down and have a good set of rewards to unlock for catching them. The same cannot be said of the other two. The flower petals are used to color your outfits, but there aren’t that many outfits to unlock or find, and I was left with hundreds of unused petals by the end of the game. The same is true of the coins. Collecting the coins feels as good as you would expect, but then there isn’t much to spend them on. I maxed out the fully upgraded wallet and was disappointed by how little there was to spend all my hoarded coins on. And in a game and genre where collecting things is meant to be satisfying, it’s extremely unsatisfying to find a big hidden cache of coins and be unable to pick them up because your wallet is full because there’s nothing of interest to spend the coins on. It works toward diminishing the fulfillment of exploration.
The last aspect that I feel could be just a bit stronger is the tone, which isn’t landed perfectly and is instead left in a sort of undecided in-between space. The majority of the dialogue, humor, and storytelling feels kid-oriented, but then characters will suddenly reference “Full Metal Jacket” or get a little more vulgar than expected (like saying they’re pissed off or calling someone a prick — which I don’t personally care about at all, but it is the kind of thing a lot of parents get riled up about). I also found the game to be pretty challenging at times and imagine a child would really struggle to get past certain parts. In a Reddit AMA, the dev said he doesn’t consider it to be a game aimed at kids and made it sound like people mistaking it for a kid’s game was a bit of an issue, but if that’s the case, I would question why a lot of the storytelling and voice performances feel so unnecessarily kiddie in tone. At the end of the day, no matter which age group is the focus, I would call the characters and story “charming” more than anything. The jokes rarely aim for big laughs, but the game is amusing throughout, and Hop’s personality (which you have a tiny amount of agency over through simple dialogue options) is fun and likable.
Overall, “Big Hops” is a great game that brings a handful of genuinely innovative ideas into a tried and true format. The elements holding it back are all addressable, and I would love to see a sequel come along and refine everything that it already does extremely well.
samkench.com 
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