Seraph Is A Platformer That Does The Shooting For You
Sound the trumpets
As a rule, I've always focused on acrobatics over aiming. It's why I've somersaulted into quite so many lampposts. Applying my philosophy to gaming, yet another Guildford based team (when I grew up there it was just Colgate and Bullfrog) Dreadbit (Ironcast) have announced Seraph [official site] - a game in which the aiming is done for you, so you can focus on your angelic flips and spins.
Created by Daniel Leaver, a former designer at LittleBigPlanet developers Media Molecule, Seraph is described as a "skill based acrobatic shooter, without aiming," in which the titular angel is attempting to regain her heavenly powers, while trapped by dark magics in the body of a paltry human. Instead of meticulously shooting at the sideway-scrolled enemies, you're tasked with dodging their attacks with an array of athletic talents. Oh, and to "look awesome while doing it". Exclamation mark.
With procedurally generated levels, the ability to craft new weapons and skills, and dynamic difficulty responding to how well you're playing, it seems they're aiming to find an original way to approach a platform game - but it's "not a rogue-like". There are checkpoints, and the ability to resurrect with penalties. There's even word of a Twitch mode, in which viewers can vote on whether later levels will have a positive or negative "modifier".
It's an interesting notion, but one that we'll have to get our paws on before we can assess its effectiveness. Not long to wait though, as it's out next month already. You can see it moving here:
