Noitu Love 2: Devolution - Demo released

RUN SPIN JUMP HIT THINGS GO FASTER AAARGH

Well I never. Really, even if you normally skip over Click game posts - if you read one of them, read this one.

The demo of Noitu Love 2: Devolution by Konjak (Joakim Sandberg) was released at the end of this week. For all the versatility I claim of MMF, I do seem to talk about platform games an awful lot - this one is still a side-scroller, but the gameplay style really is unique. It follows in the footsteps of Noitu Love and the Army of Grinning Darns from a couple of years ago, which was a NES-style beat-em-up that was impressive but never really grabbed me, largely because I was rubbish at it. But this one is a lot more accessible.

A tutorial is provided to describe roughly what you'll be doing. Control is via both keyboard and mouse, with an onscreen crosshair to aim and arrow keys to move around. You can click once to run up to the enemy and attack, hold the mouse button to grab, right-click to place a shield, or double-tap in one of three directions to boost or perform a whirly special move.

But none of that actually prepares you for the game itself - with the features like physics and hardware acceleration that have been added to MMF over the last few months, the games produced in it are getting more and more impressive, and I can promise you that I have never seen a Click game with anywhere near this sense of pace before. In fact, the only thing I can think of that it really compares to is Gunstar Heroes. Nothing ever slows down - it's even more manic than the average episode of Banzai. You have to blaze through a new mass of enemies at every step, hardly touching the ground for minutes on end, all the time encouraged to "GO! KEEP GOING!" by a flashing display at the bottom of the screen. If you're at all interested in playing it I recommend you do that before reading the rest of this, so that the surprise moments aren't spoiled.

It starts off with a wonderful use of misdirection. You begin in an office building like in the first game and therefore think it's going to be a pleasant enemy-bashing stroll, but before you've taken even a couple of steps, a giant helicopter pops up outside and shoots out the window. It then continues to chase you as you zoom along the floor, with chairs, desks and entire bookcases flying out in all directions. Jumping out a window, you land in the park where the rest of the level takes place, and have to alternately go through the mass of lesser robots and avoid attacks from the pursuing helicopter. Eventually you do get to destroy it, only to then be put up against a screen-high boat on tank wheels.

By the second stage you're bashing enemies pouring in from both sides and rocks from above while a slab of masonry scrapes and crumbles down a tower, and when you eventually reach the bottom you're immediately put up against a scythe-twirling spectre right out of Devil May Cry. And this is where the demo comes to an all too premature end. I'm really looking forward to seeing more of this - it's the kind of thing that isn't just good as far as independent PC game standards go, and really could be on something like the DS, especially with the dual controls.

Now, to something that's a tricky issue in the community, and something that I'm sure the author knows will raise a lot of argument... it's not going to be freeware. The price has yet to be decided, but honestly, seeing the amount of work that's gone into this game and how it feels to play, asking for a bit of cash for it isn't misplaced. I promise I was actually shaking after having to rip myself out of the game quickly after it nearly caused me to miss my subway station, having had to concentrate just from the sheer pace of it. And the passenger next to me even enthusiastically asked me what the name of the game was so he could download it himself - that's never happened with any independent game before.

Play it, for goodness' sake. If only to see just what the independent game-making community can do with MMF now. Once again I'm proud to be part of it, even if things like this do tend to make my own efforts pale a bit in comparison.