Twistales Preview

From the independent studio that brought us the arcade boat-karting racing game Rising Seas comes their newest endeavour, the dark fantasy action-adventure title Twistales. Twistales tells the story of Cinderella, who must fight back against the chaos that has infested her fairytale world after a strange curse falls upon the land and corrupts not only her world but other fairytales as well. Twistales is a dramatic turn away from CatOnTree Studio’s previous release, and we were offered a short look at a very early build for the game that shows off what we can expect from the game.

What we currently have on offer with Twistales is a short look at the game's introduction, as well as a sample level based upon Little Red Riding Hood that gives us a taste of what we can potentially expect from the full release. The current build is in very early stages; with only French dialogue, rough texturing, simple animation work, and about an hour's worth of playtime, but what we have is just enough to see the foundations of what the game has to offer and the atmosphere we can expect.

If the concept of a ‘fairytale character battling an evil corruption that plagues their fairytale world’ sounds familiar to you, that’s because it should; Alice: Madness Returns is a clear influence on the gameplay, and a look at the game’s Kickstarter page makes this inspiration explicit. Alice: Madness Returns and Darksiders III are an inspiration for both combat and platforming and even in the game's early stages this is used effectively. From the puzzles and level design currently present in the demo, the influence can be seen. The gameplay transitions between platforming elements and combat very smoothly in a way that shows an understanding of what made Alice: Madness Returns so good to begin with, and it’s refreshing to see that formula done again, let alone done effectively.

At its core, Twistales is a hack’n’slash action adventure with platforming elements. As Cinderella, you travel through the worlds of various fairytales, battling against the corruption that spreads within them. Aiding you in this battle is her magical grimoire, which allows Cinderella to conjure her shattered princess slippers in the form of a glass sword. In combat, you have basic combo attacks, a jumping strike, and can offer counter-attacks with a well-timed dodge for massive damage. Over the course of fights, you will begin absorbing corruption. With enough corruption absorbed, you can ‘transcend’, a mechanic reminiscent of the Hysteria mechanic from Madness Returns. When transcended, Cinderella gains increased speed and damage, as well as a devastating new weapon to accompany her transformation.

Attacking enemies allows you to absorb power in the form of crystals, and these can be used to power spells from the Grimoire. There are currently six different spells that you can utilise, each with varying use cases and effectiveness. Different situations will call for different spells; whether conjuring a giant sword to swing in an arch, pulling an enemy towards you with a chain, or even summoning a blunderbuss to explode some poor fool at point-blank range, the grimoire spell system adds an edge to combat that allows you to take a different approach to each engagement.

The lock-on system in combat was a bit of a headache, but given this is an early build for the game it can be excused. Combat in Twistales is definitely more fun when you’re mobile anyway, making the most of the distance you can create with dodging, and then closing that distance again with the assassinate spell and switching targets as the situation demands it. Enemies will attack you at both range and melee simultaneously, forcing you to constantly be on the move if you want to survive.

Twistales is in the very early stages of development as of writing — this demo is a very quick collection of what to expect from the full release, and so far it’s looking to be promising. The cancellation of Alice: Asylum earlier this year has no doubt left some people hungering for that dark fairytale action, and if this early version of Twistales is anything to go by, CatOnTree Studio is more than capable of fulfilling this desire.