History can be boring. It’s important to learn about and study, but it can just be so… dry, sometimes. Luckily(?), Wayward Studios is working on Countryballs, which seeks to make history more fun.
Countryballs is a 2D platformer beat-em-up. The campaign revolves around the world’s history, and covers the most relevant bits of the 20th century. Animated videos and gameplay will help tell the story of the world, with vehicles, boss fights and multiplayer co-op to help ramp things up a bit. Gameplay will be like Castle Crashers and Super Smash Brothers, the campaign claims.
If you want an idea of the kinda humor the game seeks to put forth, the campaign video is full of memes and dramatic music over … well, animated balls based on flags. The game has various characters, which I’d love to tell you about but the campaign left a filler “lorem ipsum” paragraph under their description.
Which brings me to the most bizarre aspect of this campaign. There is some unprofessionalism here and there throughout the campaign, but a lot of effort has been put into this. They’ve got 3D-printed figurines of the characters, stretch goals based on social media, and lots of cute, hand-drawn graphics throughout. All of this is coupled with what looks like a rushed video and the lorem ipsum paragraph.
In a way, it shows that the developers are passionate about this project, even though they’ve made numerous mistakes that would otherwise damn a campaign. That might be enough to warrant a pledge if it’s your style. Only time will tell.
Ultimately, Countryballs looks like a goofy but potentially fun game centered around world history. If that’s your thing, then check out the official Kickstarter page for more details.
