Death’s Gambit / Death's Gambit: Afterlife

A game by White Rabbit for PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Switch, originally released in 2018, with the Afterlife version released in 2021.

Death’s Gambit is a hardcore action-RPG set in a dark world, taking its inspirations from the Dark Souls series with its limited safe areas, tough enemies that respawn when you save, and overwhelmingly difficult bosses that can only be overcome by paying attention to their movements and dodging or blocking with the appropriate timing. Slashing away mindlessly only kills you faster… but death is only temporary.

When the game begins, a dragonlike humanoid is dragging a body toward a huge pyre that is already stacked with dead soldiers. But it turns out that the soldier being dragged, named Sorun, is still alive. Sorun makes a deal with Death, who has decided to take a chance on him (a gambit, if you will) to help him rid the world of its defiant immortals. With this contract signed, Sorun will be resurrected when killed, sending him back to the most recent save point to continue his journey.

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 2018, 2021, Adult Swim Games, PC, PS4, Switch, White Rabbit, Xbox One

Rain World

A game by Videocult for PC, PS4, PS5, and Switch, originally released in 2017.

Rain World is an open world action adventure starring a little creature known as a slugcat. One day, a family of slugcats is wandering through the forest, and they stop occasionally to grab some bat-like creatures out of the sky and munch on them to fill their tummies. But when the rain comes, the family scrambles to seek shelter, and one young slugcat falls and becomes separated from the rest. Alone in a hostile and unforgiving world, the slugcat must traverse the landscape, hunting for food and avoiding being eaten himself as he tries to find his family once more.

The game’s design focuses strongly on its atmosphere and ecosystem. The world is dark and filled with mysterious architecture and ancient machinery, and danger lurks around every corner. The soft (and possibly tasty) little slugcat occupies the lower end of the food chain, and must therefore be constantly wary of predators, most of which can kill him in a matter of seconds. As such, players must take advantage of the slugcat’s small size to slink around and hide, and remain watchful of predators’ behaviors to determine when it is best to sneak past.

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 2017, Adult Swim Games, PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Videocult

Rise & Shine

A game by Super Awesome Hyper Dimensional Mega Team for PC, Linux, Switch, PS4, and Xbox One, originally released in 2017.

Rise & Shine is a shooter starring a young boy named Rise and his legendary talking pistol named… you guessed it: Shine. The adventure takes place on Gamearth, a planet built entirely around video games, with non-copyright-infringing caricatures of popular figures appearing throughout, including numerous Nintendo-owned characters and some representatives from the early arcade era. Gamearth has come under attack by Space Grunts from planet Nexgen who have begun wreaking destruction upon the city.

Rise is out at the local shopping mall when a pair of warriors tumbles through the ceiling, battling it out before his eyes. One is a Space Grunt, and the other is a stand-in for Link from The Legend of Zelda, except that he is wearing a blue tunic and wielding a giant handgun. The Hylian champion and the Space Grunt fire their weapons at the same time, with the grunt’s head being blown into a spray of gore, while the Hero of Time takes one in the gut. As he lay dying, not-Link hands the gun to Rise and explains that he needs to use it to save the world… and it also grants him infinite respawns.

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 2017, Adult Swim Games, Linux, PC, PS4, Super Awesome Hyper Dimensional Mega Team, Switch, Xbox One

Westerado: Double Barreled

A game by Ostrich Banditos for PC and Mac, originally released in 2015.

Westerado: Double Barreled is an expanded follow-up to a Flash-based game, simply entitled Westerado!, which was released in 2013. As in the original release, the game is an open world action-adventure set in the old west.

The game begins when your mother asks you to help your brother with the buffalo herd. In doing so, one of the buffalo manages to escape the pen and run off, and the opening credits sequence sees the young cowboy chasing the animal across the desert.

As lighthearted as this scene is, things quickly turn tragic as the cowboy returns to his farm that evening to find it ablaze. When he gets closer, he finds that his mother has been killed, and his brother is mortally wounded and lies dying in the dirt. The brother manages only to reveal details about the brim of the killer’s hat, and offers up his gun, asking you to end his suffering, at which point you may opt to take aim and shoot your brother.

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 2015, Adult Swim Games, Mac, Ostrich Banditos, PC

Oblitus

A game by Connor Ullmann for PC, originally released in 2015.

In Oblitus, you play the role of a diminutive warrior named Parvus (which is Latin for “small”), who has no memory of his past, and no notion of what he is meant to do… except for a voice that he hears in his head, compelling him to seek out a certain area. And so, with his spear and shield in hand, Parvus ventures forth into a dangerous landscape filled with powerful and terrible creatures.

Oblitus is a roguelike, and every death returns the player to the start of the game. (Actually, even success returns the player to the start of the game, although there are artifacts to be discovered that lead the player toward a true end.) Many modern day roguelikes slowly unlock new and more powerful abilities that make it easier for the player to eventually complete his quest, but that is not the case here. The only way to make further progress is to gain an understanding of your enemies and the environment, and develop the skills necessary to survive.

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 2015, Adult Swim Games, Connor Ullmann, PC

Super Comboman / Super Comboman: Smash Edition

A game by Interabang Entertainment for PC, Mac, PS4, and Xbox One, originally released in 2014, with the Smash Edition released in 2017.

Super Comboman is a game about a fellow named Struggles who is enamored with his favorite manga hero, Super Comboman, so much so that his obsession intrudes into his day-to-day life. Everywhere he goes, he thinks he sees Super Comboman in the distance. When Struggles sets out to look for a job at a construction site, he finds himself overwhelmed with the desire to perform “combat training” by beating up everyone he encounters and breaking everything he sees. Struggles himself is a caricature of manga fanboyism; he’s overweight, has a mullet (specifically “mullet nuggets”), and sports a fanny pack.

The game sets itself apart from other brawlers with its sticker presentation, featuring characters, enemies, and objects with white outlines, and some enemy animations feature stickers peeling or spinning. The player may also search the environment to find stickers, some of which open up new purchasable moves in the shop, with the others simply filling out a sticker book. The game offers lighthearted humor and illustrated cutscenes, with an enthusiastic but hapless hero stumbling through unusual situations and larger-than-life set pieces.

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 2014, 2017, Adult Swim Games, Interabang Entertainment, Mac, PC

Völgarr the Viking

A game by Crazy Viking Studios for PC, Xbox One, PS4, Vita, Switch, Wii U, and 3DS, originally released in 2013.

Völgarr the Viking tells the tale of a Viking who is brought back to life by Odin to defeat the evil that has spread across Midgard. It seems that a dwarf named Fáfnir was so greedy that he eventually transformed into a dragon. No longer satisfied with his hoard of treasure, he began wreaking havoc across the land and built a magically protected tower that even the gods could not enter. Odin sees the plight of Midgard and decides to resurrect Völgarr, a great warrior who died after defeating hundreds of enemies laying siege to his homeland. Völgarr must defeat Fáfnir and his minions, and restore peace to Midgard.

It is fitting that Völgarr’s tale begins with his resurrection, given how generously death is rendered upon him. The game is inspired by classic arcade titles like Ghosts ‘n Goblins and Rastan, where a well-earned death encouraged the player to drop in an additional quarter to continue. The game’s opening area even duplicates the layout of Rastan – including club swinging enemies, flying enemies (bees instead of bats), and a breakable block leading to a lower area – and adds an additional nod with a familiar-looking corpse. Like the games that came before it, Völgarr the Viking offers simple controls, tight design that puts these mechanics to the test, and nearly insurmountable odds that require the player to use every tool available to him in order to survive.

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 2013, 3DS, Adult Swim Games, Crazy Viking Studios, PC, PS4, Switch, Vita, Wii U, Xbox One

Fist Puncher

A game by Team2Bit for PC and Xbox 360, originally released in 2013.

The ubran brawler got its start with Technos’ Renegade in 1986, the first of the Kunio-kun series. The Kunio series is primarily known for River City Ransom (1989), although Technos would go on to release more than two dozen games in the series, many of them focusing on sports, with notable US releases including Super Dodge Ball, Nintendo World Cup, and Crash 'n the Boys. Technos further popularized the beat ‘em genre with the release of Double Dragon in 1987, making the company the author of two of the genre’s most influential titles.

Following this, there was a boom in brawler development, with many companies getting in on the action… and many discovering just how difficult it was to create a good beat ‘em up. The result was a slew of mediocre action games that were never able to move beyond the genre’s naturally repetitive nature. However, there were a number of standout titles that kept the genre alive, including Capcom’s Final Fight series, Sega’s Golden Axe and Streets of Rage series, and Komani’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games.

The beat ‘em up genre eventually stagnated and was outshined by the rise of 1:1 fighters. While the beat ‘em up still exists in the 3D sphere, the standard belt scroller is all but lost, revisited occasionally by indie developers, and usually quite poorly… again due to the limited mechanics and naturally repetitive nature of the genre. Even the major studio release Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game showed just how difficult it can be to get the balance right in a game like this.

But a new developer has risen to the challenge to create a brawler worth playing. Fist Puncher is a lo-fi beat-em-up that focuses on the core mechanics, namely punching and kicking, with a small number of additional moves to be gained through a fairly robust leveling system. Like most other entries in the genre, the game is somewhat repetitive and occasionally unbalanced, but it keeps things interesting with its ludicrous story, characters, and settings. The end result is a competent beat-em-up that will likely appeal to fans of the 8-bit era of brawling history.

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 2013, Adult Swim Games, PC, Team2Bit, XBLIG, Xbox 360

Super House of Dead Ninjas

A game by Megadev and Adult Swim Games for PC, originally released in 2013.

Super House of Dead Ninjas is a high speed action game that pits the Crimson Ninja against a 350 story tower packed to the walls with enemies, spikes, and treasure. Action is fast and furious from the top of the tower to the bottom as the heroine slices her way through enemies, tosses shuriken to pick off foes from a distance, uses bombs to blast away blocks and enemies (and herself, if she’s not careful), and unleashes ninja magic to bring the pain to everyone around her.

The game offers a quick tutorial area to get the player accustomed to the controls, showing you how to jump, double jump, and crouch. You can also run while crouched, as well as perform wall jumps and wall slides, and you can perform a high jump by ducking for a few seconds and then jumping. There are a couple easy enemies in this area and a place to try out each of your ninja skills. But after you drop down into the next level of the tower, a 30 second clock starts counting down. 30 seconds to get through a 350 story tower may seem like madness (and it is, actually), but there are pickups along the way that restore the meter back to 30 seconds.

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 2013, Adult Swim Games, Megadev, PC