Play 'co-op with yourself' in this single-player puzzle game where you control two wizards, one with each hand

A wizard with an outfit split into orange and purple halves gestures at the camera against a black background.

(Image credit: Majorariatto)

My affection for retro puzzle games is almost as sizable as my backlog full of them; sometimes I find myself wishing I could play two at once just to save a little time.

Well, Spanish indie studio Majorariatto has caught my eye with a better value proposition than most, offering two death-defying quests to save helpless royals for the price of one in Ambidextro.

Ambidextro's Steam page describes it as "a multiplayer game for a single player" and presents a unique tactile challenge: navigate hellish labyrinths and lethal puzzle rooms as two characters at the same time.

With both a prince and princess in need of rescue, you'll play a wizard who splits himself into two mirror images and platform with them both in real time. You have limited time to reunite the two halves in each level, and 100 levels to hone your budding ambidexterity.

I've played enough Meepo in Dota⁠—who splits into five versions of himself to be controlled by a single player—to know this sort of thing is harder than it looks, but whereas with Meepo you tab between different characters to micro them individually, Ambidextro is more in the vein of something like Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, where you control one character with each hand.

You can expect a fair bit more multitasking, though, as a press release notes players will "tackle increasingly challenging levels you would have thought impossible."

It's got a charming 8-bit era sort of art style, too, with a curvy filter to homage the convex screen of a CRT. It's nothing new for this style of bite-sized puzzler, but I'm also a sucker and can't get enough, so it's hard to complain.

Ambidextro appears to have a bit more meat on the bone than the only other game I knew Majorariatto for, Pineapple on Pizza, an absurd exploration game about dancing on an island which proudly advertises "about 10 minutes of gameplay."

At a glance, all the studio's games feel like offbeat riffs on novel ideas, and Ambidextro seems no different. If you're itching to give yourself a hand, Ambidextro is $7.99 on Steam.

Justin first became enamored with PC gaming when World of Warcraft and Neverwinter Nights 2 rewired his brain as a wide-eyed kid. As time has passed, he's amassed a hefty backlog of retro shooters, CRPGs, and janky '90s esoterica. Whether he's extolling the virtues of Shenmue or troubleshooting some fiddly old MMO, it's hard to get his mind off games with more ambition than scruples. When he's not at his keyboard, he's probably birdwatching or daydreaming about a glorious comeback for real-time with pause combat. Any day now...