Let's Try The Devil's Eight (Kickstarter Demo)
3Here's my Let's Try of the Kickstarter demo of The Devil's Eight (PC), an indie music-driven Action Platformer Boss Rush game, in-development by Second Step Studios. This demo contains the first two boss battles against Limbo and Lust.
In this title, we take on the role of an unnamed character whose offensive powers have been stripped away by the Eight Overseers of Hell, leaving them with only a divine reflective shield to defend themselves with. Now, it's up to us to descend into each circle of hell, defeat its corresponding overseer, and move closer to regaining their original powers.
The main gameplay loop here is dodging the various boss attacks, and parrying/reflecting their attacks back at them with your shield to deal damage, as well as regain some of your health. Combined with the boss AI being synced to the background music's beats, this makes the game feel like a dangerous dance between avoiding attacks and counterattacking at the right moments. After all, it takes time for the shield charges to regenerate.
Every circle has their own unique electronic soundscape and abstract psychedelic background. Moreover, every boss has their own unique musical piece and moves. For instance, Limbo focuses on using Melee strikes, whereas Lust focuses on using projectiles and laser beams.
Overall, I enjoyed playing this demo. Every boss has their own attack patterns and battlegrounds that you need to learn how to counter and exploit. There's quite a bit of movement tech as well, with stuff like dashing, fast falling, short hopping, wave dashing, tech recovery, etc. The only concern I have is that the Easy difficulty setting may be too difficult. My suggestion for improving this would be to buff the health restoration upon successful counters. But, I suppose this was designed for a more hardcore audience, so it's understandable.
Alas, as I mentioned earlier, this game is a unique blend of a Rhythm game and a Boss Rush Action Platformer. I wish the developers the best of luck.
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/EtharonG
Download the game here: https://secondstepstudios.itch.io/the-devils-eight/
Main Website: http://secondstepstudios.com/the-devils-eight/
Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/928406908/the-devils-eight-stylish-music-driven-boss-rush
Second Step Studios Twitter: https://twitter.com/secondstepgames
----
The Devil's Eight is in-development by Second Step Studios.