Here’s yet another pixelated indie game – but don’t let the developers appreciation for older aesthetics throw you off. Crawl is doing something very different from what we’re used to in traditional dungeon crawlers.

The only way to properly describe Crawl is that it’s a multiplayer experience in which your friends (or strangers) will be able to control the monsters that appear in the dungeon. Whoever manages to land the killing blow on the hero will have the pleasure of taking his place.

Ultimately you’ll have to survive long enough to get experience and loot so that you can defeat the final boss. The boss of each dungeon will be controlled by all four of the players.

Check out some pre-alpha gameplay below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFASboEYxc4

The team at Powerhoof is based out of Australia, and they decided to fully develop Crawl out of a prototype they developed in a game jam. There’s a multitude of monsters, weapons and animations already implemented – you simply have to see the sprites in action as they are quite glorious.

Crawl is set for release sometime this year.