Image: Minimin

If you like 3D Sonic platforming, you really need to try out the demo for Home Paige right now. Yet another game I stumbled upon entirely by accident at the current Next Fest. Fast running? Check. Generous homing attack? Check. High air mobility? Check. Huge leaps across chasms with stunts and double-jumps and grapples to extend your airtime? Check. And the demo even leaves you off in a big movement playground, just begging for you to explore just how fast and fluidly you can move.

It is also a game about funny little people living inside my computer, which is a trope I've loved since I was a little kid, and joining a fresh wave of them, including the upcoming SNAPTIC, which just happens to be doing some crossover stuff here. What can I say? I know what I like. As an aside, did you know the similarly themed TV cartoon Reboot is being remastered and uploaded in modern HD on YouTube? Well, now you do.

Anyway, back on topic - the demo here isn't huge, but it gives you a prologue that sets up the premise (Little computer person Anna and her mouse friend Oliver want to explore beyond the bounds of the recycle bin where they live) and gives you room to stretch your legs before throwing you into some genuine platforming challenges. Don't worry about challenges, though - mistakes just get you rolled back to the most recent (generously placed) checkpoint.

On top of the classic Sonic-like abilities (including a ground-boost and aerial homing attack), there's a powerful grappling hook introduced near the end of the demo that lets you get some major air. There's a bit of a learning curve, but you can practically fly using it. Probably the fiddliest part of the demo was getting to grips with the double-jump, which behaves differently from most. It requires charging, and the longer you do so, the more airtime you get. So charging your double-jump at the beginning of a big leap, then activating it as you start to lose altitude is the way to go, but it requires refreshing some muscle memory.

My only complaint isn't with the game itself, really. It's just that I couldn't shake that I'd seen something VERY similar to this before. After rattling some brain cobwebs loose, it occurred to me that the character, animation style, and setting are all extremely similar to the YouTube animation series Anna-Logue. That said, Home Paige seems to be more focused on telling a character-driven story (at least from what we've seen so far), while Anna-Logue is more of a delivery method for deep-cut computer science and game-dev nerds. Again, not a complaint, just an observation.

Either way, the experience was very slick and felt just right to me. Even official 3D Sonic games have struggled to make high-speed movement feel right without being too twitchy or too loose, and I feel this hits that Goldilocks zone of 'just right' - let me know what you think of it in the comments.

There's no release date on the full version of Home Paige beyond 'Coming Soon', but the demo is live now and well worth a run around.