We continue our hands-on experience with the special Summer Game Fest ID@Xbox demos. In this article, we discuss Skeleton Crew, Justice Sucks: Recharged, Battle Cakes, Trigger Witch, and The Riftbreaker.
Skeleton Crew is a fun-looking action platformer where you’ll control a hero with its own abilities. Picking the hero that corresponds most with your gaming style will be crucial to have the most fun. The demo clearly showcased the different abilities and main differences between the heroes, really elevating the overall experience. At its core it’s a rather traditional action platformer where you’ll jump from one obstacle to another, all while dealing with the enemies along the way. The extra gimmick is the ability to throw objects at the environment and your enemies. The fun part about this is the fact that the projectiles bounce back from walls, enabling you to create certain pinball-like combos. It’s a fun little extra to a well-known action platformer mechanic that will possibly add a lot of originality to the overall experience. I’m really curious to see what you’ll be able to do in the full version of the game.
Justice Sucks: Recharged is a fun little game with a rather unique concept. You play as Dusty, a Robot Vacuum that takes its job very seriously. The demo takes plays on the deck of a large cruise ship that just got invaded by enemies. As a trusty Vacuum, Dusty decides it’s his job to take down the enemies. It’s here where the fun begins. As Dusty, you can activate a wide variety of electronic traps on the ship, leading the attackers to certain death. Messing around with all these traps is certainly the demo’s biggest appeal and worth trying for sure. If you managed to take down the enemies, it’s time to clean everything before the time runs out, which is a fun twist! It also forces you to not shed too much blood during the first phase of the game since cleaning will prove to be the real challenge. A very promising game, to say the least!
BattleCakes is a bit of an odd one but not less fun. Compared to some of the other demos, it’s a lot more traditional gameplay-wise. At its core, this is a rather traditional RPG where you battle your enemies in turns, like the oldskool RPGs. The fun thing about BattleCakes however, is certainly its style and characters. Everything looks like you could eat it and the cute little world is extremely wholesome. Imagine taking a trip to the candy land of your dreams and you’re pretty close to understanding what the style is all about. It’s more than a style alone however since the cute designs also impact the battles and interactions with the NPCs. It’s not the best game to play as a demo but I’m pretty convinced the final product will be very enjoyable.
Trigger Witch is another Zelda-inspired Indie game that takes the 16-bit era as its main inspiration. When you start playing it, you’ll immediatly notice the similarities between this and the original Link to the Past. It’s a rather straightforward homage featuring the same level of exploration and interactions whith NPCs. As the name already gave away, this special thing about the game is the fact that your main choice of weapon is a gun. In the demo you’ll find a couple of guns you can use to take down your enemies and obstacles. It’s a bit weird to see guns in this context if you ask me but I’m sure there will be a lot of gamers who enjoy this little twist.
The Riftbreaker is an interesting take on a base-building RTS. You’re still taksed to create certain important buildings to get stronger but instead of attacking and defending what’s yours with a gigantic army, you only control a single powerful mech. Running around as this mech while defeating your enemies feels like a rather standard traditional hack & slash game comparable to the Diablo franchise but the addition to create and defend your base really add to the overall experience. It’s one of the deeper demos currently available and so far, one of my personal surprises. It’s not really a genre I often prefer but the way it’s presented really pulled me in immediatly.
