Screenshot Survey: Smooth Moves

Expertly Animated Indies

It’s Saturday, and that means it’s time for another Screenshot Survey. Every week, we take a look at a few cool new games in the works by game developers tweeting with #ScreenshotSaturday. For even more games you might be interested in, check out this hashtag on Twitter.

This week we have several games with especially smooth animations, so feast your eyes on a slick platforming sequence, a stretchy-armed protagnoist, a giant creepy monster, and the QWOP of medieval times.

Rubi: The Wayward Mira

Under normal circumstances, I would freak out if I saw a wall of spiky crystal like this. Thanks to our lithe protagonist here, this is no problem. Using the Graviton upgrade allows her to propel up and narrowly avoid a gruesome death from impalement. I’m interested to hear more about what kind of interesting upgrades the developer can come up with in the future. And as a side note, I love the little details in the character's hair, like the movement as it jumps up and bobs back and forth when she idles.

Rubi: The Wayward Mira is one I only recently discovered, because it is having a very new and ongoing Kickstarter. It’s an upcoming 2D platformer that is “a Metroidvania at its core,” according to the game’s Kickstarter. It has some lovely visuals so far and, from what I’ve seen in the campaign’s page, a lot of varied environments to traverse. By the time of this writing, it only needs a few hundred dollars to achieve its first funding goal, so this game’s future is certainly bright.

Totem

And here we have another expertly animated, beautiful game. Our protagonist in this tweet has some interesting anatomical features, such as stretchy and powerful arms, as well as horns that shoot out a blast of something. It’s a peculiar character, but they look very fun to play.

This is Totem by Other Moon Games, an upcoming action RPG. Going off information from the developer’s website (which itself features pleasing design elements), players control Mara, who can change forms to help her in battle, granting her different powers in this action RPG. I am excited to see what other kind of forms Mara can shift into, and if it looks as satisfying as those stretchy arms and shooty antlers, I’m all in. Totem has a Kickstarter soon, according to its website, so be on the lookout if this one catches your eye.

The Tarnishing of Juxtia

The depth of this monstrosity is excellent. I love the cross between 2D and 3D visuals, like in Octopath Traveler. The 2.5D visuals adds so much to the movement of this creature, making it terrifying and especially fearsome. Kudos to Jacob, and I hope to see more of his work as you and the rest of The Tarnishing of Juxtia continue development.

The Tarnishing of Juxtia is another Screenshot Saturday regular that definitely deserves a highlight. It’s a 2D platformer with what seems to be Soulslike gameplay, going off of the many tweets found on the developer’s page. It’s also interesting to point out that you can see the evolution of The Tarnishing of Juxtia over months of tweets, which is a rare treat. I’m sure there’s more to come, too!

Bloody Bastards

Remember that classic flash game called QWOP? It’s that ridiculous game where you play as a track athlete, except it has wonderfully absurd physics and is extremely hard to control. I can’t speak for the actual controls of Bloody Bastards here, but it looks about as ridiculous and goofy as QWOP was back in the day. Who needs those highly realistic medieval fighting games when you cans swing your arms like a maniac in Bloody Bastards?

There’s not a lot of information on this game, but we know that Bloody Bastards is, for now, coming to Google Play on February 1, 2020, and later on iOS. Going off the platform choice, it’s controlled by your phone’s touch screen. Look out for it if you want to wildly flail your arms around like a maniac, too.