Emberwind

Home sweet gnome

It looks like Braid in the dark and plays like something from the Amiga era, yet I'm reminded mainly of Torchlight. Emberwind has more than a few things in common with Runic's recent dungeon crawler, certainly. A whimsical fantasy setting, rooted in tradition but with a few neat twists. A modest yet hugely pretty cartoon image. A desire to reinvent a classic genre for modern PC gamers. But most importantly, the baddies. That there are just loads and loads of baddies.

Emberwind is to the platform genre what Torchlight is to role-playing. It's an indie game that takes a classic and popular concept, cuts out all the peripheral faff, and makes the whole experience completely action-centric. It's almost not worth worrying about platforming staples like precision jumping, as checkpoints are abundant and death rarely leads to frustration. You run from left to right, from top to bottom, mashing the space bar as quickly as you can, dispatching hundreds of bad guys and feeding upon the most enormous pile of loot that Emberwind throws at you in every single level.

The Kingdom of Grendale isn't used to this breed of mayhem. Since King Gyro took the throne, its streets have been safe, its guardian spirits unnecessary. The Celtic population feasts under a sky of fireworks each autumn, a celebration of the land's progress. Shame an army of evil has shown up to spoil the fun.

Kindle's a Fire Gnome. As him, you're in charge of lighting the lanterns of Grendale to restore peace to the world. You're accompanied by your trusty owl friend, Wick, who flies you from location to location. Wick left his own kind to watch over the population, to ensure no further harm was done. He swore to bring word to the north, to the other snow owls, once Grendale was safe again.

In other words, it's all a quaint fantasy affair. It's a shame more isn't done with Emberwind's lore, though, as despite the predictability, there is a lot of depth here. But it's a depth that's never realised in the game. That gumph above? Got it from the website. Two hours into Emberwind, I'd forgotten most of the context. It cries out for a little more narrative thought, a little more guidance on the game's part.

It isn't just the story, either. For example, I knew I had to light various lamps around the game world, but it took me a good hour to work out that they function as checkpoints as well as a story element. The game never told me. Similarly, I'm still not entirely sure what purpose the Brownies - cute little troll-like figures, not girl guides - serve. You collect Brownies around the game world, and they aid you in combat, somehow. There's never a discernible enough difference between your fighting before and after picking them up.

These feel like unfortunate oversights in what is a rather adorable game. But it serves as a neat reference point for Emberwind's focus. It's rarely about the detail, instead settling into a compelling rhythm of button-mashing attacks and heady exploration. Things start off slowly, but the intensity quickly ramps up, and before you know it you'll be surrounded by an abundance of Gremlins, all hacking and blocking and bomb-throwing for the greater evil. Soup Troops whack you round the head with a ladle, while Scouts prod you with tridents; Bandits hurl explosives and Bouncers stomp around with spike-encrusted planks of wood. Boss fights are particularly intriguing, functioning as a sort of health bar tug-of-war. Land a strike, and the dual health bar sways in your favour. Get struck yourself and it reverses. It's a clever move, a tidy and functional addition to a well-covered formula, one that shakes things up without leaving Emberwind's mechanics feeling unfamiliar.

Exploration works particularly well. This might be a straight-forward side-scrolling affair, but liberating Emberwind's locales still requires a bit of directional sense. Many of the citizens' abodes, in which you must light a fire to extinguish all nearby enemy threat, can be stumbled upon by simply running from left to right. Others are more elusive. Different routes begin to emerge, and you'll need to do a hefty amount of backtracking, jumping, climbing and general experimentation before you find the lot, particularly in later levels. Secret areas are prevalent, too, discovered by smashing down crumbling walls and delving into deep caves below.

But it is in the delightful simplicity of the combat that Emberwind really excels. There's only a single action button - tied to the space bar - yet it can be used in a variety of different ways. Hit it once for a standard thwack. Hit it repeatedly for a speedy combo move. Hit it while running and you'll roll up into a ball, powering through any foes in your path. Hit it while enemies are afar and you'll hurl an acorn at them. It becomes a case of contextual button-mashing, rather than an undesirable case of arbitrary, finger-wearying tedium. New attack moves are learned from magical books that hover around the game world. Unlock the lot, and you'll be an unstoppable Gremlin-mowing machine.

The world could do to be fleshed out a little more. It stays just about varied enough, with new regions unlocking right before the repetition starts to grate, but you get the sense that so much more could have been achieved with it - especially considering the amount of back-story available on the website. And if there's a criticism of the action, it's that movement feels a little too airy. Jumping leaves you floating for too long, and the standard running speed is uncomfortably slow. There's also a handful of instant-death water traps littered around the world. When Kindle can happily swim through flooded tunnels but dies the second he falls into a pool of water, eyebrows are raised.

But all these problems are easy to forgive the second you become absorbed in its charming world, its delightful sense of nostalgia and its smart twists on an age-old concept. When you get decent change from a tenner and the game lasts a good few hours, it is hard to stay mad at its minor quirks. Emberwind takes the platforming genre, adds a hefty dose of cathartic combat, and remains easily intriguing enough for its duration. Read the website notes, fill in the story's blanks and enjoy one of the most quietly endearing indie games of the year.

79%

By Lewis Denby