Plok

Plok is a 1993 action platformer created for the Super Nintendo by the British studio Software Creations. The game stands out for its distinctive art style, colorful and slightly zany world, and its title character – a being made of flying limbs that can be detached from the body and used as weapons against enemies scattered across island levels full of insects and strange creatures.

Plok can throw his own arms and legs at opponents and then summon them back, giving the game an unusual rhythm to both its combat and its platforming sections – the player has to judge when to keep the limbs for jumping and when to sacrifice them in a fight instead. Without limbs the hero moves more slowly and is more vulnerable, so the player must constantly weigh when to attack and when to call the weapons back. The levels are full of hidden paths and bonus rooms, and the level design emphasizes exploration and experimentation over sheer speed, setting the game apart from the Mario- and Sonic-dominated platformers of the era. The music and graphics also make full use of the SNES's color palette, lending the game's world a fairy-tale, almost psychedelic feel.

Despite a warm reception from contemporary reviewers, Plok never became a commercial hit and remained something of an overlooked gem in the SNES catalog, partly because it launched at a time when store shelves were overflowing with competing platformers backed by louder marketing. Today it's prized mainly among collectors and fans of lesser-known platformers as an example of inventive design that lacked only the marketing push comparable to Nintendo's big franchises. Among old-school players, Plok nonetheless remains synonymous with a distinctly British sense of humor in a genre otherwise dominated on the SNES mainly by Japanese and American studios. The fan community still remembers the game today as an example of just how many ideas could be packed into a seemingly simple platforming concept, and ranks it among the titles that deserve a second chance with a wider audience.

Why play it: It offers an unconventional mechanic of throwing and recalling your own limbs, which sets it noticeably apart from other platformers on the SNES.