Developer: Roofkat
Publisher: Roofkat
Platforms: PC
Tested on: PC
WarpThrough – Review
Ready for a fast and challenging platformer that looks and plays just like an arcade game? Well, look no further, WarpTrough is just that. WarpThrough will put you in the shoes of Charlotte, as she and her family will be fighting against monsters in other dimensions to try and stop the creatures from invading their world. With a short story to boost, this game can keep you amused for quite a few hours.
Story
The story of WarpThrough revolves around Charlotte and her particularly strange family. She casually wakes up in her house while the world is still getting invaded by monsters. To help save the world and get rid of these monsters, Charlotte and her family venture from dimension to dimension in different locations. When trying to return home after completing the goal in some locations, she gets pulled into other strange places with a strange creature that threatens her if she doesn’t stop doing what she’s doing. The goal in each area is to pass through enough portals to unlock the next location. When you’ve reached the amount needed without dying, the story will continue with new conversations and new locations.
WarpThrough features a fun story, although the writing could’ve been a bit better. It has some spelling errors and the effort to put some obscene language in the game doesn’t come out all that good. Adding this sort of language could’ve been done better with some voice-acting.
Graphics
The graphics of WarpThrough are very basic with a pixel-art style that fits the classic arcade gameplay of this game. The characters look okay, but are nothing special and the portals that are used to navigate through the different locations look like the developers put just a tad more work in those. When you die, a very bright green explosion will occur, filling the whole screen with this flashy aura. The enemies look just like you would expect in this specific style and their designs are okay. Each time you jump into a portal to progress, the background will change according to which dimension you’ve jumped to, with each having their own color scheme.
Sound
The music in this game has two sides to it. The music is repetitive as hell, but it seems to take a long time before you get annoyed by it. Each level, you’ll hear the same track over and over again, starting from the beginning all over again when you die. When jumping through portals, not only the scenery will change, but also the music will change a bit. The same song will continue on playing, but the sounds used in each type of dimension will. While the melody of the song changes constantly when you switch dimensions, the song gets a really nice vibe to it. If you wouldn’t be chased by monsters all the time, you would want to time your jumps to change the music at the perfect time.
Gameplay
WarpThrough is a challenging arcade survival platformer. In each location, you’ll be warped to a secluded one-screen area in which you need to survive as long as you can while kicking some monsters to the curb, and trying to go through as many portals as you can before you die. It seems like an easy game but with the screen being filled by more and more monsters, the areas in which you can walk freely will become very small.
The controls of WarpThrough are very basic while at the same time complex enough to master. The only things you can do in this game is walk to each side, jump and fire your weapon. Firing your weapon will require you to stand still for a short second to charge it up and then move into the direction you want to use it. While avoiding the monsters that roam the screen, standing still to charge your weapon and then move to shoot can be very tricky to master, especially when you want to make a jump shot. You need to press the jump key before you move to a side to shoot upwards, so coordination is necessary to shoot in the right direction. Moving to a side before the jump will shoot it to that side and you won’t be hitting the monsters above you.
To progress and unlock new locations, you need to jump through enough portals to provide enough energy for Charlotte’s dad to discover new locations. The further you get, the longer you need to survive and jump through more portals to unlock the next location. As you progress and get to new places, you’ll jump to new dimensions when you touch a portal. These dimensions will add new enemies with other movement patterns and tactics to try and kill you. The crusty dimension will spawn flying blobs, while the burning dimension spawns burning monsters that walk in a straight line and the ghastly dimension will spawn ghost-like creatures that can fly and freely pass through all the platforms. With more different enemies on one screen, it will be getting harder to keep surviving.
Conclusion
WarpThrough is a great arcade survival platformer with a minimal amount of controls used to play this game. It is played in a very fast pace and will keep you enticed to try and beat your own score and reach the next location. The different enemies that appear in the different dimensions make the game very challenging as you need to anticipate on all the different movements around you to keep yourself alive. Standing still to charge up your weapon can prove to be quite tricky to master, as you need to time your movements to shoot at the right moment in the right direction.
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