A Closer Look at Warlocks
by Julie Morley
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It all started with Risk of Death. When Dushan Chaciej played Risk of Rain in December 2013, inspiration struck and it combined Risk of Rain and wizards. After a week of development, he created Risk of Death, a sidescrolling platform shooter. After receiving such a positive response, Dushan continued working on this project, maturing it into something bigger. An artist and skilled programmer (who programs with his feet!) joined the team and the refinement of Warlocks began.
In May of this year, a playable demo of the versus mode had been created. After showing it off at a convention and receiving such a strong, positive reception, there was no going back. A member from the One More Level studio joined their group and the team was officially put together. People loved Warlocks so much it was Greenlit on Steam.
It was clear that Warlocks was going places from that point and they needed some financial help. The team launched a Kickstarter campaign and invited people to test their playable demo, available via link on the page, and just like before, the reception has been positive. Now they’re aiming to release Warlocks in February 2015 and the Early Access in Q4 of this year (November).
Warlocks is a lowbit sidescrolling adventurous platform multiplayer brawler (whew! What a list!) for the PC, Mac, Linux, and WiiU (though they’re hoping to add PS4 and Xbox One to the list). Warlocks has multiple game modes, including Story, Co-Op, and Versus. All of which supports local and online multiplayer.
The story about Warlocks is a little difficult to find but I have gathered a small understanding of it. The Human World is separated from the Shadow Realm, which is where all evil resides. Somehow, the evil found an opening into the Human World and began corrupting Warlocks with a horrible virus, affecting them with dark magic. Now, Warlocks from all across the Human World have teamed up together to travel through multiple dimensions, reach the Shadow World and battle the evil that dares corrupt their home world.
This band of Warlocks, each equipped with a unique spell base, take on powerful, epic bosses, explore multiple dimensions, and collect whatever loot they can get their hands on. Defeating these bosses will free the affected Warlocks and lessen the influence of evil in the Human World and in time, additional warlocks will join your cause.
Rainer is a Warlock that concentrated on lightning-based magic. He is a member of the elite Order of Spell Singers. Anya is a Ice-oriented Warlock and the princess of the Frozen District. After running away, she joins the cause against evil. Jake is a young fire Warlock bound to an ancient Phoenix. Kheera is a shaman, hell-bent on destroying every trace of evil after they murdered her sister.
The remaining six characters will be unlocked further down the line in the story.
I played through the demo available on their Kickstarter page and was stunned by it. Players pick one of the four characters mentioned and go at it alone in a dungeon against wave upon wave of shadow monsters. The goal is to take down sixteen waves successfully. Unfortunately, I have yet to make it past wave 12, and that depresses me. It’s difficult. Really, really difficult, but successfully engages the player, which is the entire point.
Warlocks has become one of Kickstarter’s Staff Picks and has geared up a positive campaign so far. If this project sounds interesting to you, please check out the in browser demo for yourself. Spread it around. Tell everyone about it. It’s time to put an end to the evil in this world.
[divider]You can learn more about Warlocks by heading over to its Kickstarter page.
[facebook][tweet][Google][pinterest][follow id=”Cliqist” size=”large” count=”true” ] [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]
