Moonbrella Demo: Metroidvania With No Jump Button

Moonbrella (Steam). Hover for a Voidge draft sketch inspired by a fragment of the capsule key art.

Honestly, the Moonbrella demo is the most fun I have had with a control scheme this year. It is a 2D platformer metroidvania with no jump button. None. Every bit of movement comes from your umbrella, which you upgrade as you explore an abandoned planet and climb toward the moon. The free demo has been on Steam since June 4, 2026, the full game is listed as Coming soon with no release date yet, and it runs on Windows, Mac and Linux. App ID 3433800.

The numbers back up the hype. As of about 11:00 BRT on October 23, the Steam page shows 98% of 392 demo reviews as positive, Very Positive, and every one of the 27 reviews from the last 30 days is a thumbs up.

Open the clip on X if the embed does not load. Cut from the official Moonbrella Trailer.

What is Moonbrella?

The Steam page sums it up in one line: use a variety of umbrella tricks to ascend to the moon in a physics based metroidvania. You play a lone robot left behind on a planet the humans abandoned. Your job is kinda sweet: revive a dying sunflower trapped in the moon's shadow. Along the way you pass through dark caves, ancient structures and an active volcano, picking up flowers and gemstones as collectibles.

It is a world built to connect. In his demo launch post, the dev says the full game will have around 17 checkpoints and 20 collectibles, and unlike the demo it has no dark loading zones. The world is fully interconnected.

Steam players tag it 2D Platformer, Metroidvania, Short, Difficult, Physics, Nonlinear, Precision Platformer and Minimalist, plus Robots, Nature and Post-apocalyptic. No Horror tag, no content descriptors and no AI disclosure on the store page. The full game's Brazilian rating is 10 with a fear descriptor, while the demo is rated L.

No jump button, explained

Here is the part that clicked for me. Instead of a jump, you get three umbrella moves, all straight from the store page:

• Jab the umbrella tip into the terrain to vault over obstacles.
• Open the canopy to slow your fall and float long distances.
• Hook the handle onto ledges, vines and more to climb high and build speed.

Moonbrella (Steam). Hover for a Voidge draft sketch inspired by a fragment of the vine hook screenshot.

That sounds limiting until you see how the moves chain. Vault off a wall, pop the canopy to hang in the air, hook a vine at the last second and fling yourself into the next room. The store calls it expressive movement designed with speedrunning in mind, with multiple ways to approach each challenge. The dev has been showing off the weird edges of it on X too, like infinite wall jumps in the demo and a clip titled, quote, "a bug in Moonbrella I can't fix." Heck, I respect a dev who posts the bug and lets players keep it.

Progress is classic metroidvania. You find replacement parts for the umbrella, each one unlocks a new movement option, and those options open new areas. If grappling through a world is your thing, our Iron Bramble demo writeup is a pretty solid pairing.

What is in the demo?

The demo covers the start of the game plus a tougher area you would normally tackle later, with a couple of umbrella upgrades and collectibles. Your save carries over to the full game through cross save.

Moonbrella (Steam). Hover for a Voidge draft sketch inspired by a fragment of the volcano screenshot.

The dev added a new area to the demo this week. The Steam update posted on October 18 (October 19 in Australia) brings a new pyramid area, a new umbrella upgrade and two new collectibles. It also stops the hook from grabbing ledges that do not exist, makes the robot die in deep space (you bet somebody got out there), adds a new Interface settings menu and cuts down color banding in the sky.

The volcano is the spicy part. Back in August the dev posted a clip asking if the demo volcano is too hard, and it pulled close to 8,000 views. Assist options exist, and the store lists Color Alternatives, Camera Comfort and full controller support with DualShock and DualSense. The demo asks for 1 GB of RAM and 350 MB of storage, and there are 14 languages, Portuguese included.

The speedrun scene is real

This is not just marketing copy. The Moonbrella Demo board on speedrun.com went up the day after the demo launched, and as of this morning it lists 216 verified runs from 74 runners across Any% and 100%. The fastest Any% time on the board is 44.85 seconds. In July the dev posted that the demo had hit 50 Any% runs and was the fifth most popular new game on the site. For a demo with no release date, that hits.

What our clip shows

Three takes of pure movement from the official Moonbrella Trailer on Steam. First, the robot vaults and swings through a dusty cave full of rock ledges. Second, a climb up icy blue walls, then a lava cave where it threads past the molten channel. Third, a vine swing through the cave and the walk into a lantern lit pyramid. No menus, no logo cards.

Who makes Moonbrella?

Steam lists Jett Williams as developer and publisher, under his own name. He is based in Queensland, Australia, posts as @JettWilliamsDev on X with about 450 followers, and his bio says he also created Sumorbit. He writes in first person, answers players, and has showcased Moonbrella at the Queensland Games Festival in June and PAX Aus in October. His February devlog was about improving the art with help from professional artists. On October 17 he told a fan on X that the PS5 version is a few months away. His post about the new demo area pulled close to 14k views, so people are watching.

Is the demo worth it?

You bet, if you like movement games that reward practice. The fair warnings: it is tagged Difficult and Short, the volcano can be rough, and there is still no release date or price. The good stuff is everything else: a hook you can explain in one sentence, a moveset with real depth, a clean silhouette art style and a dev who keeps patching and adding content. My verdict: pretty solid, and honestly kinda special. Take a look, give it an hour, then wishlist it. And if you want a different kind of momentum platformer, our Uppercute post is a fun detour.

Image credits & rights

Images on this page are hotlinks from the official Steam store assets for Moonbrella, used with respect for their copyright.

• Moonbrella on Steam
• Moonbrella Demo on Steam
• Jett Williams (@JettWilliamsDev) on X
• Capsule key art and screenshots by Jett Williams.
• Screenshot sources remain on the Steam CDN (capsule and store screenshots for app 3433800). Voidge hosts only purple crop-inspired draft sketches for hover and fallback, plus the short blog clip.