Cannonball Kid
Cannonball Kid (the latest from the developer of Fortress) is a nice, straightforward, no-time-limit puzzle game that kind of felt like Jolly Chimp Champ to me (a game I loved). Each level is one full screen, and your job is to rotate directional signs to guide a cannonball fired from the bottom of the screen to the alien invader at the top. Mechanically, it has a lot in common with the Dreamcast classic ChuChu Rocket!, where you would guide little guys around a maze to the exit, but this one is even more streamlined. Instead of putting the guiding signs anywhere in the level, the signs are already there — you just have to pick which direction they face. And there aren’t even that many on each level, which keeps the game moving quickly.
More than a lot of games of this type, it rewards thinking before action. You only have three lives (there is… I think one extra life you can find in one of the levels), and losing them all means game over. You’ll restart just a few levels back, but even one game over means that you don’t get the good ending. Learning exactly how the different blocks interact with your cannonball is key to getting to the end successfully, or you can just get good at memorization and try again. The dev even made a full strategy guide with solutions to every puzzle if you get really stuck, which is honestly a very nice thing to do that I’d love to see more developers do if they had the time.
Besides the standard arrow signs that send your cannonball in a certain direction (and only a few are changeable in each stage), there are some other tricky ones, like blocks that rotate with each ball strike, or on/off switches that determine if the alien’s shields are up, or blocks that disappear after one bounce. You have a limited amount of bounces before your cannonball runs out of energy, but I never found that to be too restrictive. When I lost a life, it was usually because I had a sign facing the wrong way and it sent my ball off the edge of the screen.
The controls are interesting: you choose which sign you’re turning with the crank, and point which direction the sign is facing with the d-pad, then A fires your cannon and holding down B restarts the level (this costs one life, however, so is really just for when you get your cannonball stuck in an endless loop). It’s not a very long game, but each level is artisanally crafted to offer something different than the others, and the difficulty curve is smooth, with only a few levels that felt easier than the one before. That might be just to give you a breather, though.
I love that there’s no time limit, and the different awards that you can win at the end of the game (as long as you don’t lose all three lives over 31 levels!) encourage you to try it once more, but more perfect this time. There aren’t any online leaderboards or anything, but it’s enjoyable enough to spend an afternoon with until you master everything and get the true ending.
The only thing I’d change is maybe add a few more UI options, like let me restart from the beginning if I mess up too much and get a game over, or maybe have a level select to practice the later levels without having to blast through the easy ones first. There’s a tutorial at the beginning of the game along with a story cutscene that sets up your motivations, but the only way to see it again is to get all the way to the end or delete your save data, which was a little wonky. But, it kind of has that Sonic the Hedgehog thing where you just get so good at the early levels that you don’t really need a save point. Still, it could be nice!
This is a perfect short, thinky puzzle game to spend an afternoon with, that will challenge you but won’t make you pull your hair out. There’s just enough replayability to encourage trying for perfection, and the cute vibe and clear goals means all ages can enjoy. And what millennial among us hasn’t wanted a new game that makes them fondly recall ChuChu Rocket!?
(Released May 12, 2026, on Catalog. Copy provided by developer.)