Back in March during GDC, I was fortunate enough to check out a very promising upcoming platformer called Le Parker: Sous Chef Extraordinaire. I had never heard of the game before, nor of developer PlayPretend, and they didn’t have an appointment to meet with us or anything like that. They had heard we were at GDC and simply tracked us down and we were able to squeeze in an impromptu demo between meetings, and it ended up being one of my favorite games I saw at the conference. I love conferences like GDC precisely for those unexpected moments when some super awesome game just comes out of the woodwork. Anyway, about a month later PlayPretend released two new videos showing off more of Le Parker, but things had been awfully quiet since then. However, just last week the developers popped back up on our forums to announce that Le Parker was under review with Apple, and just a few moments ago Le Parker: Sous Chef Extraordinaire (Free) officially went live in the App Store.

In case it wasn’t obvious, I’d been unreasonably excited for Le Parker to launch since I originally saw it in March, and even after spending only a few minutes playing through the first couple of levels it’s already exceeded my expectations. This is an absolutely beautiful game just bursting with personality, and the most important aspect of a platformer to me–the weight of the character and the “feel" of running and jumping–is excellent. The game features 32 levels, each with their own additional goals like beating a Time Attack time, collecting all the Macarons in a level, and finding all the kitchen utensils hidden throughout. For a one time $2.99 purchase you get fully Universal support between iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV, as well as iCloud progress syncing and MFi controller support. It really is pretty much everything people always ask for in a premium game, so if you like platformers and the look of Le Parker: Sous Chef Extraordinaire, get ready to part with your three dollars and be sure to check out the discussion of the game in our forums.