13Am Games announced that a new platformer is scheduled to make its way to Steam and the Nintendo Switch this summer called Double Cross.
The game is about a time agent named Zahra Sinclair, a female minority (because it’s [current year] and would you really expect anything less from an indie studio?), who must travel through time and space to maintain balance. The premise is a little bit like the time warriors from Dragon Ball Xenoverse, who must restore balance and maintain peace through the multi-verse.
Double Cross differs greatly from Dragon Ball Xenoverse insofar that it’s a side-scrolling platformer, not unlike 20XX or many of Inti Creates’ recent side-scrollers.
An announcement trailer for the game was published recently, which you can check out below.
The game attempts to take a toned-down approach to conflict resolution by limiting the amount of violence gamers can disperse, relying mostly on Zahra’s time-manipulation abilities to slow down objects and grab and throw them to defeat enemies and progress through the levels.
There’s a Bionic Commando-style element to the game where you swing across platforms using a plasma-hook to grapple across chasms and clear gaps.
While the character designs look like something out of a Japanese side-scroller, the reality is that 13AM Games is actually a Canadian studio, hence their aversion to the typical buff, white male hero and gun-oriented gameplay.
If you’re more into puzzle-platforming then the game seems to be themed around that style of gameplay, but the levels themselves look large, cavernous and… well, empty.
The backdrops seem to be early in development; there are large swathes of nothingness across the sprite patterns. The camera is also largely zoomed out as if there’s supposed to be a lot for players to soak in from the environments, but many of the stages are just large and empty. Also, there doesn’t appear to be a lot of challenge for the player when it comes to facing off against enemies.
The trailer teases some sort of boss fight but we don’t actually see it play out.
Those in the comment section note that Double Cross has an interesting concept and character designs but the actual gameplay “doesn’t look like much”.
Others feel as if they were looking at pre-alpha footage of a game still heavy in development.
According to the developers they’ve been focusing more on the different gameplay styles that they wanted to present to players in Double Cross, with Alex Rushdy, CEO of 13AM Games, mentioning in the press release…
“We designed Double Cross to accommodate a variety of gameplay styles thanks to our adventure gameplay and unique upgrade system,”
“We want gamers to find the style that suits them best, while also adapting to any challenges that arise. Players are free to customize the way they play and choose how and in what order they play levels.”
First impressions are everything, and right now Double Cross hasn’t really impressed gamers beyond having decent character animations and platforming mechanics. They’ll need to ramp up the difficulty, flesh out the backgrounds, and add some meatier challenges if they want to avoid becoming the 2018 version of Mighty No. 9.
