I’m always a big fan of local co-op games, or as most people have begun to call them, Couch Co-op. I think for many, the act of sitting on a couch with friends and playing a game together make up many of their earliest and fondest memories playing video games. Unfortunately as we got older and online play became more popular, local co-op games fell by the wayside. That is until the last couple years, when suddenly an influx of indie games resurrected the genre with great games like Castle Crashers, Magicka, Nidhogg, and so many more.
That’s why I’m really excited about a game that offers the same awesome experience of local co-op, but also gives you the option to play with friends online if you can’t meet up in person. Enter Warlocks, a game by developer One More Level out of Poland. Warlocks has been recently greenlit on steam and as of this writing has about 2 days left and $7,000 to go on a kickstarter campaign. I got a chance to play the demo, and based on my limited look, it was awesome!
My time with Warlocks gave me a good look at the game from two different perspectives. I got my own perspective as a person who plays a LOT of games. I also got the perspective of my wife, who plays very few games and whose recent accomplishments are walking in a straight line in Mass Effect and driving somewhat proficiently in Sleeping Dogs. I figured this would give us a good glimpse into how this game would appeal to many different people.
Basically, your experience is greatly going to come down to which character you choose. There are about 6-8 different options at the moment, and each one has different spells and abilities. Our first picks were an armored angel for me and a mech for my wife. It went…..badly. We decided to try again, with her choosing a boy with a pet phoenix and me picking a guy that looked like a pink American Gladiator. Suddenly, things really fell into place.
My character was all about jumping through the air marking enemies, then using a teleport attack to slash through them, while the boy with the phoenix mostly relied on the phoenix casting fireballs and fire streaks all over the place. The two synergized amazingly and we ripped through stage after stage. Quite honestly, I think my wife was much more effective playing her phoenix boy than I was with my gladiator. She picked it up really quickly and became proficient in no time. We managed to make our way to the first boss and defeat it, at which point the demo came to an end.
There are a ton of nice touches as well, especially in character dialogue. My character sounded all grim and serious, but I caught the occasional “You have elected in the way of pain!” line from him, which Lord of the Rings fans will notice as a line by Saruman. My wife, meanwhile, was endlessly pleased with the phoenix boy’s persona as a power-drunk 12-year-old gleefully setting the world ablaze with his pet phoenix “Tucker”. He’d yell “Yeah, Fireball, Fireball, Fireball!” and “Go on Tucker, make it burn, BURN!!!” in a devilish adolescent voice.
While it was amazing fun, Warlocks is still very early in its development. The only stage that’s available is pretty short. Controllers are supported, but when using them you still get keyboard prompts, which left us wondering what they meant by “Press Z to sell item” on my 360 controller. As I mentioned, all the characters have different abilities, but there isn’t really anywhere to find out what they actually do. You have to just pick a character and spend the first few minutes trying out each ability to see what spells you actually have.
These are all very easy to overcome obstacles that I’m sure will be ironed out well before the full release of the game. I’m sure more content will come along as well. Assuming those come into place, the basic elements of Warlocks are extremely exciting for new and seasoned players, and I can’t wait to play more.
Interested in playing the demo? Click here:
Kickstarter – https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/229931946/warlocks-0
Web demo – http://omlgames.com/warlocks/warlocks.html
