Developed and published by Roofkat on Steam, WarpThrough is a new arcade platformer with a new combat mechanic. Time for a quick look.
While WarpThrough’s long term appeal lies with its weekly challenges and leaderboards, as well as multiplayer play, we played through the story mode to get a good grasp on what the game is about. There are three teens to play with, and you start off with Charlotte, whose father has opened up a gateway to another dimension. Once on the other side, you can warp between dimensions by touching warpholes that appear at random locations, all the while avoiding (or taking out) the enemies that appear.
Most of WarpThrough’s levels take place on a single screen, where walking off the side makes you appear on the opposite side and falling through the bottom gets you to the upper part of the level. Because there’s not a lot of room to move around, things quickly get hectic and you’ll want to take out a few of the monsters that just keeping appearing and eventually clog up the level – keeping you from reaching that next warphole.
Combat doesn’t work like you’d expect though, because you only have a jump button and no attack button. Instead, your attack charges up when you stand still, and you unleash it by moving and/or jumping in a certain direction. For Charlotte, this is a strong punch. Her friend Three has a gun with an aim that keeps rotating (and fires in the current direction when you move) and Ebbie has her dog on a leash waiting to pounce on bad guys. Later on, you also control Charlotte’s father, who leaves a trail of electrical charge when he moves.
The different attack mechanics are different enough to keep the short campaign interesting, despite the straightforward gameplay. The campaign is just over an hour long, after which the content is limited and seems mostly targeted towards high score chasing. Something we’ll have to try when we have a few people around to play local co-op with and/or compete for scores with each other.
A special mention goes out to the game’s soundtrack, which is a catchy up-beat electronic ditty, but one that changes in subtle ways when you hit warpholes. This is a great touch that complements the flow of the gameplay through music.
The game was inspired by the likes of Towerfall Ascension, Super Crate box and Downwell – so if you’re fond of those you might want to give this one a look.
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