bumping to bring to attention a fantastic indie game that i came across recently called the underside, which takes all the good things that cave story did so well, and rather shamelessly implements them into a platformer with way more charm and humour. seriously, this game is absolutely hilarious. the humour often comes in the form of subtle pokes at itself, but there are a few laugh out loud moments that really reminded me of mother 3. my favourite part so far, for example, is a short way into the game, when you enter a long corridor with a sign at the start. the sign reads "we have a feeling you'll be seeing this sign again real soon -- the underside safety commitee". as you walk down the corridor, a huge elephant comes racing towards you, and as i turned to run away, passing the sign as i did so, i was actually laughing out loud.
as you can see it is
very inspired by cave story, but if you can put that to one side then you'll be able to enjoy something that i felt was, in many regards, better than its predecessor. the platforming, for example, feels alot tighter, with the jumps being abit heavier and your movement speed bumped up a bit. all this makes the underside alot more fast paced than cave story, with it's slow, floaty physics and emphasis on exploration over action in many areas. still, the developer commented on his blog a while back
(link) that hes started work on the "next stage" of the game, where the world opens up a whole lot more, and old areas become revisitable with new weapons and equipment, which i am really really excited about. hes also revealed on his blog that the finished game will feature achievements, equipment, and customizable weapons. this isnt empty promises either, most of it is already finished and he's said hes planning to release a new preview build featuring a bit more of the game and the new stuff fairly soon!
the game is still in development, but you can (and should!!) go check out the preview build thats available for download
here. it's about an hour and a halfs worth of gameplay, featuring a few boss fights and a handful of weapons to find.
you can also find a video containing clips from the preview build as well as the later game
here, on vimeo. the video doesnt really showcase the games best feature though, unfortunately (the humour), instead choosing to focus on the action, but still, its worth a look to give you an idea of what to expect.
so yeah, if you liked cave story, seriously, download this. do it right now. i guarantee you will not regret it. i am not joking when i say that, after an hour and a halfs gameplay, this has probably become my most anticipated game for the coming year, way up there with mario galaxy, scribblenauts, and layton 2. no joke.