Dieselstormers Early Access Review
By Julie Morley
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On each level, we do miscellaneous tasks while taking down any Orcs who dare stand in our way.
Back in May of this year, Black Forest Games launched a Kickstarter campaign for Dieselstormers, hoping to raise just enough funds to carry the games’ development to the Steam Early Access debut date. After Black Forests’ unsuccessful campaign with Project Ravensdale back in 2013, their new campaign had a much more modest goal of just $50,000 as compared to the $500,000 sought back in 2013. Fortunately for everyone involved the Dieselstormers Kickstarter campaign was a success, and they’ve been working on in every since; even releasing the Early Access version on July 17th. Given that we’re talking about an Early Access game it’s expected that the game isn’t complete, but is it worth it yet? I spent some time with Dieselstormers recently and though I’d share my experience.
All over the map are protective force fields and saving points to replenish health. These are useful when dealing with mass hordes of Orcs.
Dieselstormers is a sidescrolling platformer run ‘n’ gun game taking place in a quirky medieval metropolis combo where war is raging between the Orcs and Dieselknights, tall taking place in Ravensdale. Orcs have taken over the city and it’s up to the Dieselknights to take back their resources and take out these pesky Orcs.
Dieselstormers can be played with up to four players in co-op multiplayer mode but for the lone wolves out there, there’s always good ‘ol single playing as an option. Players belong to the Dieselknights, group, fighting their way through randomly generated levels and gathering what resources they can. Various gun parts will be scattered throughout the city, which players can gather to build up their weaponry, giving this Run ‘n; Gun a mild RPG element and some depth.
Orcs are near Transgoop Stations, which are essentially dangerous hot goo that will take away our life.
In my experience with Dieselstormers’s Early Access, I acknowledge many of the features are limited. I began my journey in a tutorial mission, learning about the different abilities and methods of transporting my character, which was easy to understand. For the remainder of my gameplay experience, I had to work my way around the buildings of Ravensdale to kill hordes of Orcs hiding underground, floating from the sky, you name it. With a left click, I could them down, with a right, I could smash. It was an easy concept.
In each level, there will be miscellaneous weapon parts we can use to craft the ultimate weapon or upgrade our stuff, thus adding a small RPG element to Dieselstormers.
Dieselstormers was pure chaos on my computer screen but the most awe striking feature was how polished both visually and musically it was for the early access release. The town of Ravensdale was beautiful, looking like a finalized game. I was amazed by the progress Black Forest Games made since the campaign.
Unfortunately, I only played through the single campaign, though the co-op campaigns appear to be elaborate and awesome. I was disappointed to find a lack of story content in the Early Access version and the lacking of boss battles; but that is the beauty of Early Access, Dieselstormers is a work in progress and Black Forest Games has promised us a particularly lengthy list of features they intend to implement in the future.
With that in mind, Dieselstormers is a bit ahead of the curve and I’m excited to see the finalized version.
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[author image=”http://cliqist.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/julie.jpg” ]Julie Morley is a freelance writer and comic artist from Spring, Texas. She attended the Academy of Art University for two years, studying Animation and Illustration. Whilst here, she learned about writing comic scripts, storyboards, and general storytelling. Since leaving college, she has been working on personal comic projects, stories, and illustrations. She aspires to release a self published comic within two years. For the majority of her life, she has been playing console games, typically being third-person shooters and sandboxes. Her favorite game of existence is Dark Cloud II (Dark Chronicle) and her favorite Indie game is Gone Home.[/author]
