So there we were, sitting in the EGX press area, sipping on slightly tepid cooler water when a fairly TGS-Jet-lagged Alex Rose turned up with his laptop. He popped the question, "Do you mind if I show you my game?" and, impressed with his candour, we agreed.
Super Rude Bear Resurrection (SRBR) is a game about dying, and then living again and using your own corpse to your advantage. It's also a super fast, brutal and funny game, of the ilk of Super Meat Boy and Kavanagh's VVVV. Crisp simple looking retro graphics bely a deeper more involving game of speed, accuracy, multi-tasking and level-learning. Your bear and his glowing, floating laser-toting friend have to navigate their way through the dark and dangerous levels, past spikes, chopping scythes and treacherous moving platforms. BC was pretty useless at it, but Alex demonstrated how a skilled speed runner can move through the game with grace.
The interesting twist, in terms of navigation, is that once your bear dies, and he will die often, you can step on his dead body when navigating spikes and other dangers. The game is designed with a certain amount of leeway when you do hit the spikes too. Touch one and then jump away quickly and you carry on, jump from too large a height, or dash too fast into them and you're shish-kebab. You can also slide-climb higher walls with a particular combination of buttons which is, essentially, the SRBR equivalent of the riposte in Dark Souls. Challenging to do, but essential to help you progress. Built into the levels also are secret areas that allow you to find in-game items, which are all lovely nods to other games.
Some areas require some pretty inventive solutions to pass, including building a gruesome 'tower of bears' to help elevate you further. Your floating companion (cloud? drone? bubble?) which you also can control and use to scout areas of the level ahead of you has a laser which is pretty useful if your cavalcade of cadavers gets in the way of your progress. A quick zap! and the bodies are handily disintegrated. It seems like SRBR could well be an interesting platformer, but also have an element of emergent gameplay, which is exciting for this sort of genre.
Alex has a boggling collection of Physics qualifications and is close to obsessive about ensuring the platforming is crisp and intuitive. His artist, Daniel Burrows, is a trained fine artist and the soundtrack by Deeco is a suitably fitting mix of grime and electro.
Vorpal Games are currently looking for a publisher and it seems this is just the sort of game that Devolver would jump on. We hope to bring you more details and a review as the game develops. Meanwhile feast your eyes on the early alpha footage below.
Super Rude Bear Resurrection (SRBR) is a game about dying, and then living again and using your own corpse to your advantage. It's also a super fast, brutal and funny game, of the ilk of Super Meat Boy and Kavanagh's VVVV. Crisp simple looking retro graphics bely a deeper more involving game of speed, accuracy, multi-tasking and level-learning. Your bear and his glowing, floating laser-toting friend have to navigate their way through the dark and dangerous levels, past spikes, chopping scythes and treacherous moving platforms. BC was pretty useless at it, but Alex demonstrated how a skilled speed runner can move through the game with grace.
The interesting twist, in terms of navigation, is that once your bear dies, and he will die often, you can step on his dead body when navigating spikes and other dangers. The game is designed with a certain amount of leeway when you do hit the spikes too. Touch one and then jump away quickly and you carry on, jump from too large a height, or dash too fast into them and you're shish-kebab. You can also slide-climb higher walls with a particular combination of buttons which is, essentially, the SRBR equivalent of the riposte in Dark Souls. Challenging to do, but essential to help you progress. Built into the levels also are secret areas that allow you to find in-game items, which are all lovely nods to other games.
Some areas require some pretty inventive solutions to pass, including building a gruesome 'tower of bears' to help elevate you further. Your floating companion (cloud? drone? bubble?) which you also can control and use to scout areas of the level ahead of you has a laser which is pretty useful if your cavalcade of cadavers gets in the way of your progress. A quick zap! and the bodies are handily disintegrated. It seems like SRBR could well be an interesting platformer, but also have an element of emergent gameplay, which is exciting for this sort of genre.
Alex has a boggling collection of Physics qualifications and is close to obsessive about ensuring the platforming is crisp and intuitive. His artist, Daniel Burrows, is a trained fine artist and the soundtrack by Deeco is a suitably fitting mix of grime and electro.
Vorpal Games are currently looking for a publisher and it seems this is just the sort of game that Devolver would jump on. We hope to bring you more details and a review as the game develops. Meanwhile feast your eyes on the early alpha footage below.
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