Down Ward - A Gameboy Inspired Platformer is Available in Early Access

Created for the GameBoy Jam 4, Down Ward is a glorious black & white side scrolling platformer by Fisholith. Available now as an early-access release, it is available for Windows and HTML5 In-Browser form, and will have an eventual Steam & Mac OSX release.

In Down Ward you take the role of Gable, a little owl, who has set herself to the task of reigniting the ward towers in the four-color wilds. Gather incandescent feathers and use them to relight the dormant tower cells.

Down Ward boasts a slick set of controls to fly about the levels. The movement tutorial is part of the first stage and will quickly get you flying around with little interference to the gameplay. A lush digital soundtrack along with the gorgeous pixel art quickly draws you into the world. Several layers of background scrolling effects enriches the visual atmosphere as you swoop, flutter, wall-bank, spring jump and attack.

A fun feature the author provided is the ability to select and create custom color palettes! Many (112!) pre-defined palettes can be selected in game, and more fan-made color sets can be found on the official Game Jolt page.

It's clear a lot of effort and love has gone into making Down Ward, the animations are very smooth, the world contains lots of unique graphics and the overall feel of the control system makes for a quickly addicting game. Keep in mind, the author states, the later levels get quite hard! A prototype "easy" mode adds a checkpoint-like system. None the less, be warned. Be warned! D:

Down Ward is currently available in Early Access for Windows systems and playable in your HTML5 supported web browser. Steam and Mac OSX releases are planned.

- Article by Scotty Emerle-Sifuentes

Links : 1) Website 2) Steam 3) Youtube 4) Twitter