Adventures in the Desert Country ~Al and the Underground Labyrinth~ (PC)

 It's nice to see a game that's a clear labour of love from its developer, and Adventures in the Desert Country ~Al and the Underground Labyrinth~ (which is the title according to Google Translate, but it reads decently enough to me) is definitely such a game. As far as I can tell, it's an original setting and characters, with all original graphics and sound, and made and designed completely from scratch. It is, in terms of production values, easily up to the standards of the average indie/doujin 2D platformer, and it's free! Amazing.

 

Is it actually any good, though? Yes! But with a caveat or two. Before I get into that, I should probably descibe how it plays, though. It's a very old-fashioned, nineties-style platformer, in which you play as the eponymous Al (Albert Lal Custard, to give him his full name) as he traverses the also eponymous underground labyrinth. In the labyrinth, there's lots of enemies who want him dead, and who can be fought off either with swordplay, or by shooting fireballs at them. An even bigger threat than the enemies, though, are the many, many bottomless pits littered throughout each stage. And of course, the two are capable of working together, too, with enemies often being strategically placed so that they've got a decent chance of knocking you to your doom.

 

One nice little touch is that that goes both ways, though: you can also knock enemies off of platforms to their doom, too. And not just in the bottomless pits, either: enemies are affected by all the traps in the stages. Spike pits, lava pits, falling blocks, and so on can all be used to your advantage if you're smart. And that's where the aforementioned caveat comes in: this game is really difficult. Not in the way of the masocore platformers that were popular about fifteen years ago, but in a normal, old-fashioned "make no mistakes" way. If the stage select in the options screen is to be believed, there are eight stages in the game, and I've gotten as far as the sixth. To get past the third you really need to start playing carefully, getting the lay of the land, and so on.

 

It's not a Rick Dangerous-type situation, where you need to memorise the entire stage layout, because the hazards are impossible to react to without foreknowledge, you just have to play smart, assess the situation, and form a plan. The enemies and the stage are both against you, so to progress, you'll usually have to figure out how you're going to kill the enemies with the tools you have, and how you're going to traverse the stage (which obviously becomes somewhat easier when the enemies aren't in it). So though the game's short, and the stages themselves aren't very long in terms of how much actual distance you cover in each of them, this is still a game that'll take a while to get through, because of the methodical way it needs to be played. I'm sure a skilled speedrun of it would be an exciting watch!

 

As I already said, this game is a clear labour of love, and if you're interested in playing a platform game that demands a lot of strategy and skill, you should definitely give it a try. It's the exact level of difficulty where every bit of progress is a satisfying accomplishment, and you'll keep playing past the point of frustration so as to not let the game beat you. I've had it a while now, so I have absolutely no memory of how I originally discovered it, but you can get it here.