A little bit Zelda and a little bit Gang Beasts, Awaysis is trying to make physics-based combat way punchier.
I never know what to expect from indie studio 17-Bit, which debuted more than a decade ago with strategy game Skulls of the Shogun and followed it up with the great roguelike Galak-Z, before taking a detour into VR with Song in the Smoke. Well, I do expect one thing: whatever wildly different ideas they tackle from one game to the next, they’ll be fueled by whatever founder Jake Kazdal is recently obsessed with.
« I’m addicted to physics-based games: I think they’re so much more rewarding, deeper, so much more interesting inherently, but I haven’t found any that are done really well », he tells me. At least, not done well in the exact form he envisions: something that blends the slapstick physics silliness of a game like Human Fall Flat with a more classical, Zelda-esque style of adventure.
That’s what his studio has been cooking up for the last three years, along with a sort of claymation art style that the trailer above barely does justice. It looks like someone took the pre-rendered, plasticy CG art of a PlayStation 1-era game, molded it from clay, and then scanned it back into a computer to make wonderfully textured 3D models.
« When I first watched Gang Beasts, there was a crowd around it at PAX, and people were freaking out », he says. « When you’re trying to throw a guy off a ledge the tension is so high.
