Arson and Plunder by is a side-scrolling arcade beat’em up by Headup Games that is all about lighting baddies on fire and then punching them in the face.
As a fight between the forest’s Orcs and Elves is about to break out, humans decide to toss their noses into the mix and make their intentions of devesting the forest through deforestation known. As magical barriers (and pylons) are laid, it becomes clear that the Orcs and Elves have found themselves a common enemy. Unfortunately, old habits die hard, and the Orcs and Elves are unable to choose the single warrior to travel through the ‘Magnificent Stone of Milius’. The result is a race to the stone with some entertaining consequences.
Playing as either the magical flame-wielding elf Arson or the axe-swinging Orc Plunder, the player takes on hordes of enemies as they progress through stages in an attempt to take down the magical barrier in their forest. While I definitely prefer the magical prowess of Arson, the two characters play and feel vastly different from one another. This is great for people who prefer to play beat’em ups in a particular fashion, as those who want to get right in the enemy’s face can choose to roll with Plunder. Those who like to light stuff on fire choose Arson. Its pretty simple, no? Don’t worry if you can’t make up your mind though, because *spoiler alert* you can play as either character at any time thanks to the Magnificent Stone’s magical shenanigans.
Obviously, I wouldn’t be writing about this game if I didn’t want to see it get greenlit. But there’s more to it than getting released on Steam, as getting greenlit means that the developer will be able to focus more resources on improving the game. In fair criticism, there’s two things in the preview build that I would love to see get improved in the final game, and one of which is part of the “we got greenlit!” plan. If greenlit, the dev team will be adding local coop. Damnit, we need more local coop games on Steam and this is shaping up to be a really neat game. With the Steambox on the horizon, lets go more games with local coop on Steam! The second is in the controls. Some of the attack animations seem a tad slow, especially with Plunder. The result is a slight drop in control responsiveness (because you can’t turn/move while attacking). Nothing game breaking, but hey, I just thought I would bring it up, okay?