The Awaysis is a mysterious floating relic from which water flows down like rain to the animals living below–until it suddenly stops, causing widespread drought and panic. Cue the arrival of brave little fox Auro to the titular island in the sky, with the mission of figuring out what’s going on. But more importantly, being up this high is an open invitation to swing your sword to smack enemies off the edge of the floating ruin, sending them plummeting to the planet below.
That’s the key differentiator for Awaysis and why developer 17-Bit is referring to it as a dungeon brawler, rather than a dungeon crawler. While creative director Jake Kazdal cites a variety of inspirations, from the 16-bit Secret of Mana to Minecraft Dungeons, those games are about getting better gear to make your damage numbers go up. Kazdal said he’s grown tired of the constant focus on damage numbers, as well as the canned animations and responses that deliver them to enemies. Instead of that approach, the combat in Awaysis is driven by what he claims to be cutting-edge physics simulation that isn’t being done by anyone else.
“We want to do something that feels very weighty, it’s not scripted animations, it’s not frame-perfect timing,” he said to me when I visited the Kyoto-based studio for an exclusive first look of Awaysis, prior to the game’s official announcement at IGN Live during Summer Game Fest. “It’s very much greedy, dirty, physical combat, but based on a classic aesthetic.”
Physics systems have, of course, become essential to the ways many modern games are played at their fundamental core, from Half-Life 2 to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. These examples, however, are outbound, where the player’s actions affect the world around them but not the other way around.
“On a moment-to-moment level, when you swing your sword, it’s going to have the same canned response every single time, so there’s no subtlety to the combat, it’s just very rote,” Kazdal said.
It’s why Awaysis is instead inspired by pure physics-simulated games such as Human Fall Flat and Gang Beasts, where there is a dynamic weight to gameplay that players are reacting to. But Kazdal also has frustrations with the goopy and sluggish feel of these games–and so 17-Bit has built its own physics tools with the aim of bringing the tight inputs of a classic arcade game with emergent dynamic outcomes.
“What we want is that [when] I swing my sword and hit a wall, we have a target animation that plays a recoil, but we combine actual physical information with animation data that’s going to simulate how much that sword will bounce back,” he explained.
Indeed, much of how the physics affect animation is determined by the melee weapons you wield. That’s partly why you’re playing as a diminutive critter two-handing comically oversized weapons, though it might also be down to Kazdal’s preference for using the claymore when playing Dark Souls.
“We wanted your physical interactions to be super readable, even on a smaller screen, and the weapons are kind of the star of the show,” he said.
Basic sword attacks come in either thrusts or slashes, executed either by hitting a bumper or trigger and with the direction of the swing determined by whether you’re pressing buttons on the left or right side of the controller. Attacks are made more effective when you charge them by holding the button down, with your blade itself filling with a bright color like a diegetic power gauge. A tap gives a weak but quick jab attack, while fully charging up packs enough power to send enemies flying like a baseball. Squeezing both triggers launches Auro in the air with a rising slash like a Ryu-style Shoryuken from Street Fighter, while the same action performed in the air will slam the sword downward with a lot more power–enough to break crates or other structures.
Your weapon is also your means of defense for blocking and deflecting incoming strikes. Push the right stick and you’ll hold your weapon in front of you in that direction. Time it right and you can bounce an enemy’s weapon back with a boing, staggering them as stars swirl above their heads as if they’re in a Looney Tunes cartoon.
It’s not just about weapons though, as you can also slide on the ground. When taking advantage of sloping surfaces, it’s a quicker way of moving, but with enough speed, you’ll also be able to smash through crates or even slide into foes to punt them back.
All these elements taken together demonstrate, despite the isometric appearances, that this isn’t a dungeon crawler. With other platforms and objects to take advantage of, each room in Awaysis almost reminds me of the arenas from fighting game Power Stone, with the added option of being able to ring-out your opponents.
That doesn’t mean enemies will just stand around, waiting for you to knock them off the floating island. Something that 17-Bit has prided itself on in its games, from debut tactics entry Skulls of the Shogun to the wildlife of VR survival adventure Songs in the Smoke, is having enemies that actually think. As I greet a gang of long-eared imps, I notice how they position themselves away from platform edges, and as I anticipate parrying an attack, one of them steps forward and catches me off guard with a shove.
“They have self-preservation tendencies, they’re strategising, they’re communicating with each other. We try to make the enemies feel as player-analogue as possible,” said Kazdal.
He cites the enemy AI in Halo as being incredibly influential, especially if you choose to slide up to the highest difficulty in a mission in Awaysis. Weakened enemies in Awaysis will also run away, and they’ll even try to make off with any food lying around so they can heal themselves. As it takes time to consume an item, you do have an opportunity to interrupt them while they eat to claim it back for yourself. There’s a real intentional messiness to these systems that makes each combat encounter feel different and keeps you on your toes.
There is still something of a numbers game, as you will be leveling up and upgrading your gear as the game goes on. Randomized loot with procedurally generated buffs and upgrade paths provide incentive for replaying missions, which will also change as stronger enemy types appear on repeat visits. But at its core, Awaysis isn’t about long-term RPG systems but about the moment-to-moment experience, for which Kazdal has his own very technical term.
“I call them FPS–f**ks per second,” he says. “I love racing games where you’re paying attention to your momentum, your weight, your timing, for every frame. Your f**ks per second [in Awaysis] are very high compared to something like Diablo, where you can just be clicking and you don’t have to be 100% checked in. In this game, you need to earn your hits, you need to earn your blocks, it’s very physical, so it’s meant to have super high FPS!”
Awaysis is coming soon to Xbox Series X, PS5, and PC.
Source link