Artsy Acrobatics: 'Aaru's Awakening' Trailer Shows Off Unique Platforming
by Joseph Leray
When we last left the impossibly-beaked, quadripedal protagonist of the lushly animated "Aaru's Awakening," I encouraged everyone to play the demo, to experience the game's fresh take on side scrolling, platforming, and third-person shooting.
Unfortunately, Reykjavik-based Lumenox Games have opted to take the demo down, feeling that it "did not give an accurate representation of the final version." That's a shame, because I liked the demo for the way it blended traditional platforming with non-traditional control schemes. It was pretty hard, though.
On the flipside, the Icelandic team have released a new trailer.
As far as I understand it, "Aaru's Awakening" takes place in four different zones, each representing one part of the day-night cycle: Dawn, Day, Dusk, and Night. The game's first trailer introduces a shred of story -- the eponymous Aaru has to destroy Day's four temples in order to progress in his undoubtedly epic quest -- and hints at the game's structure.
The game's visuals are self-evidently striking, but I also can't speak highly enough of how imaginative "Aaru"'s platforming, also on display here, is. There's something so disruptive about using that little magic bullet to move around the world instead of more traditional running and jumping. Even in the first few screens of the sadly-disappeared demo, it opened up some really neat puzzle and timing opportunities.
Independently-developed 2D platformers are, for better or worse, a dime a dozen in the nascent indie boom, but what little I've played of "Aaru's Awakening" is promising. There's a Steam Greenlight page for the game, or you can check out Lumenox' website if you'd like to keep up to date on it.
"Aaru's Awakening" is slated for release later this year.
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Joseph Leray is a freelance writer from Nashville. Follow him on Twitter
