Children of the Sun is a short game, but a short game executed masterfully. This mixture of puzzle and sniping action drips with an impeccable style and encourages lots of replayability.

A mysterious individual called THE GIRL is waging a war of vengeance against a dark and insidious cult - in her favor is a psychic power that allows her to control the path of her bullet to dispatch multiple foes in a single shot.

The actual pace for this single shot starts out rather slow, like a puzzle (or the similarly amazing game SUPERHOT). Time slows down to a crawl when the first shot is fired, and upon hitting a target (either a cultist or other environmental bits such as explosives or birds) the bullet can freely change direction to the next target. Later in the game the player can aim the bullet for weak points to charge up midair re-aims, curve the bullet's trajectory, and speed up for powershots.

While the game starts off very easy at first, figuring out where targets are and how to hit them can be quite the puzzle. The game allows marking enemies that remain after repeated tries, making it very handy for pathing out the perfect shot. Enemies are mostly regular goons hidden throughout the scene but some (armored enemies requiring a powershot, psychic enemies that push the bullet out of the way) require much more careful shooting. After that the player can also push for a higher score, with distance, time, and places hit all factoring into a better performance. The global leaderboards are already very bloated but it's addicting to apply past lessons and knowledge to previous levels and sharpen that score.

Story and style help this fantastic concept shine further. The dark and gorgeously lit neo noir landscape is glorious to behold, evoking media like God is a Bullet and Too Old to Die Young as violently intense audio mixes with gorgeous pinks and purples. It's a perfect match to an intense struggle with cult repression and breaking out of that cycle.

Children of the Sun only lasts a few hours if you're playing through front to back, but if you like high scores, challenges, and a unique horde mode waiting at the end this game will provide a lot more. Dark, delicious, and super replayable.