First notice: That while I have had no personal involvement in making the game, the Key was provide to me by an old friend who is the artist.
Second Notice: Review is in progress, Will update as I get to play more and that at any point This review can change entierly to reflect the current build of the game.
Starting with clear comparisons to Duck Game & Tower Fall Ascension. Its an action based 2D arena combat shooter.
Presentation:
You boot up the game and get a visualy pleasing game logo, leading to one of two modes. Single-player & Multi-player. As of this build there is only 1-Stage and a hand full of characters to play as. The characters themselves are look great, are unique enough to be memorable, and deverse enough that no two are the same. I reccomend to Pump up that permotional material and make people want to play them, Likeable and artistaly unique characters sell. And all the art is done well, Though i feel some aspect in the backgrounds blend to much togther. For example, there is a large arrow above your character to note who and were you are, My issue being its to big and it blends to much into atleast the single-player stage.
Character protraits are fantastic, but with the scale of the world to your character it's a little dissapointing but understandable that what you actually play is not as athestically pleasing.
Gameplay:
The first thing to figure out is how everything works, It's all simple to understand and what I expected to be Wall slide, Jump, shoot etc. Were in there inteded and easy to find functions, Though i can see were a controller is better for movement, mouse is the clear definitive winner in aiming. While every character looks unique, there not so holy diffrenet, Sure stats are there, the numbers add up but that's really all they are untill a better implamentation arrives that gives more of unique twist to each characters gameplay. Everyone is also extremely heavy, movement is hard to judge when gravity decided that going up has ended and beats you down to the ground, it makes jumps harder and in turn can cause frustrations.
Guns have a clear cut winner, The flame thrower wins the day, if you have it, you win. It's great to look at but the power gap is clear. But everything aims perfectly and is really fine tuned greatly, Some sounds don't activate, notabley the shotgun sometimes blasts with no sound. Sometimes if your to close to the target a bullet with decided to pass through the object or person rather then hit but it's a rarity. The Melee weapon, duel knives is lacking, Clearly useless and needs more impact, larger swipe range, faster rapid fire swings, Something to make it contend even with the lowlest of ranged weapons.
Single-player as of now it's a Smash Brother style destory the targets, and is a good testing ground to learn, highly reccomend that be your first go to before multiplayer, but could benafit from AI fights, or even small story later on.
Multiplayer - Not fully tested, need more time. Is local player only. Which is the goal of the developer but i must point out Tower Fall: Ascension's want of this exact same design goal and how poorly liked the choice was by community and how it affected sales badly. While on a Console it is far more likely, most computer set ups don't allowly for easy local play, And also the platform for PC has be decidely online for decades far before the Ps2's and Xbox's days of Lan or Online. I do suggest the devs invest into online at some point down the line.
Tempoary final thoughts: It's got a future, It's going to have clear compatition from Duck game and others of the like. But focus on tighting up movement, and make it stand out from the pact & you'll make a mark. If they decided to stick to Local Online Multiplayer - is disappointing due to alot of my closest friend being in diffrenet states or countries that I can not play with, but there are work arounds.
I would reccomend this game to any fan of the genre, or people who like unique art.
