Croakspire: a frog, a tongue-whip, and a castle full of secrets

Croakspire drops you into a fortress labyrinth as a frog whose best weapon is a tongue. It is a retro-inspired 2D metroidvania: collect treasures for permanent movement upgrades, open up a large interconnected map, and mix equippable tongue-whips, secondary weapons and a variety of item pickups against intimidating bosses with complex attack patterns. Backtracking gets less tedious as the movement kit grows. Full controller support, on Windows and Linux.

The main path can feel gentle until later bosses, which is a plus if you want a breezy castle crawl and a minus if you came for a bruising one. New Game Plus may carry cosmetics only, wiping levels, gear, bestiary and map completion, so a second loop can feel like starting the grind over. Control bindings may not stick between sessions.

It's a modest crowd so far, so treat this as an enthusiastic early recommendation for metroidvania fans who like a big, secret-stuffed map and can live with a gentler stretch of difficulty.