Indie Spotlight — Treasure Adventure World
Recently, at the Too Many Games convention, we had the chance to talk to indie dev Robit Studios about their upcoming game, Treasure Adventure World. We began by playing a demo of some of the early moments of the game.
I begin my adventure in bed as my character wakes up. The crisp, vivid, cartoon graphics immediately grab me as I take in the sights of the small island house. I spy a chest in the upper room of the house but it’s locked, so instead I make my way outside and chat up my grandmother who’s hanging around the house. With a little bit of tongue in cheek humor, the dialogue text reveals that I must undertake a much smaller fetch quest to obtain a key from the locked chest before setting off on a much larger expedition. I start by heading to another house on the island to find the key. Navigation is simple and responsive as I run and jump along the 2-D path, and the animation is beautiful and looks like it popped straight out of a picture book. Some simple platforming and funny dialogue later, I have the key and return to the locked chest to collect the primary means of combat: a pirate hook, the perfect tool for adventuring.
(P.S. — check out the trailer, but be warned…the music is addicting)
With pirate hook in hand (or should I say “in place of hand”), I travel to the other end of the island where a large mountain looms. I can make my way to the top through a small cave featuring some of the first instances of the type of action players can expect to deal with during the game. Inside the cave, I run into medium sized spiders that lunge at me. Luckily, with a few swipes from my hook, I am able to push past them easily. The combat mechanics aren’t your normal button mashing, instead each button push initiates a large, slow swinging attack that must be carefully timed in order to make contact with the enemies. At first, the speed of combat felt too slow, but after getting into the rhythm, I could see how important it was for gameplay. In speaking with Stephen Orlando, the lead designer at Robit Studios, I learned that this is an intentional design choice in order to prevent the senseless button mashing of most side-scrollers and forces players to approach combat with a little more finesse and planning.
With a few dead spiders behind me, I find the first simple puzzle in the cave, which requires players to pull a lever and run under a closing door. On the other side of the door, you can jump and grab onto a hook and then jump up to the top of the door, giving you access to the higher platforms in the cave. Steven told me that this puzzle is a simple way to introduce players to some of the puzzle mechanics they would face throughout their journey, a smart way to teach players how to play the game while keeping them in the action.
As I reach the top of the mountain, I find my grandfather who has a map for my adventure. The map indicates that this adventure is much bigger than what I played during my brief but fun demo. Judging by the number of characters the player character can speak to, and the various locations that need unlocking, it’s clear the game promises a large world to explore in 2-D side-scrolling platforming RPG adventure fashion (in other words, a “Metriodvania” style game). And I can’t wait to dive into Treasure Adventure world when it comes out.
After my demo, I had the opportunity to chat with Stephen about his game and the development process. You can check out the whole interview below.
Stephen mentioned that Treasure Adventure World has about another year of development left. The game will initially release on PC, with Mac and Linux ports to follow immediately afterward. He also revealed that, depending on sales, there is interest in porting to consoles. If you’re interested in Treasure Adventure World, make sure to check out the website right here where you can pre-order the game, download the demo, and follow Robit Studios’ social media accounts.
