The Underside - second preview

Arthur Lee has released another preview version of The Underside, a side-scrolling platform adventure. I've mentioned the game before a few times here as something that I have very high hopes for - Arthur Lee, let's be honest, doesn't get on with a lot of people in the Click community, but you have to admit he's got a very professional-looking game here. He's good at getting the intangible charm and character in sprites that make things look so special.

And what's really impressive about this release is that it includes the wonderfully-named Almighty Paintbrush, which is even at this stage a pretty complete world editor for the game. This is possible because most of the game is externalized into little script files, sprite sheets and level layouts - by modifying any of these it's possible to create your own adventure using the game's engine, making it one of the most fully modifiable games in the Click community next to Knytt Stories. A mod loader is included, but I couldn't get it to run and just overlaid the files myself. Two of them are included in the preview.

There have been many jokes about how similar the game looks to Cave Story, though those are wearing a bit thin now, and so is the frankly slightly schizophrenic defence by the author. It's never been a secret where the inspiration came from, though, and to be honest I don't see the problem with it - this might be the nearest thing we get to a sequel, and if it promotes the use of Click software by being a great example of what you can do with it while it's at it, all the better. In the end, the similarity is going to be an advantage, because even if it's labelled a "Cave Story creator"... that, to me, sounds like a pretty fantastic idea. Who knows, if the language and tile editor is simple enough to pick up, it might even become a new ZZT of sorts. But without the community - they can keep that.

The Underside preview 2