Indie Games News/Previews #14

Savior by Starsoft (2020?) - PC, Consoles (TBD)

There are so many superb looking indie games around these days it's hard to keep track. The latest one to catch my eye is Savior (known previously as Into the Rift) which is currently being developed by Starsoft, a small studio made up of veterans of both the game and movie industries. It's a 2D side-scroller and is being touted as an 'open world platformer', and while it clearly takes influence from several genres, there does seem to be an extensive amount of platforming. Splendidly, this isn't just bog-standard running/jumping action either - one of the numerous notable things about the game is the main character's parkour-inspired movements, as can be seen in the pics and trailer here. Look as she flips and leaps all over the place, dodging enemies and scaling the terrain!

The character in question is a lady called Sam who is apparently both lost and forgotten, and she finds herself 'thrust into the middle of an ancient conflict between two halves of a divided people'. The peoples are so divided, in fact, that their societies are equivalent to bronze and computer ages respectively. That should give us a nicely varied game-world, both in terms of the locales and the things we find in them - one minute you'll be running through forests fending off guys with swords and spears, the next you'll have giant robots shooting lasers at you! Well, maybe not the next minute, for Savior's world promises to be a large one filled with lots of places to explore and characters with whom you can converse, build alliances, and form coalitions to complete quests.

It looks like there will be quite a few adventurey elements here too, including collectible equipment and weapons and all that stuff. The emphasis is on the platforming and combat though, and Sam appears to have wide variety of moves at her disposal for doing that in what looks like a (mostly) fast-paced game. Hopefully controlling her and getting her to do all these flips and fight moves won't be too complicated, but there are obvious shades of games like Prince of Persia and Flashback here and the controls weren't too complex in them, so I'm optimistic. Add to all this the gorgeous pixelly graphics, smooth animation, and superb attention to detail, and it looks like Starsoft are onto a corker here. I can't wait to give it a go, personally - what about you guys?

Here's the first official trailer of Savior. Check out Starsoft's website here for more info and future news/announcements.