I’m a sucker for a classic 2D platformer, and I’m also a sucker for well-intentioned roguelike elements, so when Doinksoft pitched their upcoming side-scroller Dark Scrolls, it immediately grabbed my interest. If you aren’t familiar with Doinksoft, they’re the team who made Gunbrella, and there’s a lot of the same charm here.
The premise for Dark Scrolls is pretty simple: It’s Ghosts ‘N Goblins with a roguelike twist. As you proceed through the levels, you’ll earn points that are converted into gems at the end of the run.
You can then use those gems to unlock purchaseable upgrades for new runs, emotes, and new playable characters. It’s also playable co-op both locally and online, so there’s a whole bunch of reasons for “just one more run”.
In the preview build there were five playable characters, though one is locked off behind a 100 gem cost and I was too impatient to farm that.
Instead of farming for that unlock, I opted to check out new powerups after a few sets of runs. Kinda wish I had held off, but it’s a preview, so one character likely won’t make or break my enjoyment.
For the purposes of the preview, the characters that are available from the start are as follows:
Grizz, the classic Barbarian who throws axes and does a sweet ground pound to make his enemies wish they’d never waddled under him. Pigeon, the loveable rogue who throws daggers and can throw daggers at her feet in lieu of a ground pound.
Next there’s Emerys, a classic black mage that throws balls of energy and can turn himself into a spinning drill that moves either horizontally or vertically based on how you jump.
Lastly, if you free the dog that’s in the cage during the first stage’s boss fight, you’ll unlock the powerful pooch Biscuit, who does what you’d expect a dog to do: Attacks with sonic barks that briefly stun enemies, but Biscuit can also infinitely jump and turn into a spinning pinball so you can do your best Sonic the Hedgehog impression and bounce around like a kid hopped up on Pixi Sticks at SkyZone.
Gameplay itself feels nice, but can be a little bit floaty until you get used to it. I kept having to remember to stop attacking in order to change directions, which made the game pretty rough when it got hectic.
It’s also worth mentioning, there are areas where you have to utilize your ability to double jump or bounce off of enemies, because I definitely died to screen crush a few times because I instinctively killed an enemy and Grizz couldn’t jump his fat ass high enough to escape.
The same issue happened with Emerys, as you have to deliberately aim in the direction you want to spin or else sometimes you’ll go up instead of forward, a mistake that cost me quite a few runs as well.
Pigeon for the most part plays well by keeping your distance and utilizing her stealth special to perform a super high damage strike, and Biscuit handles best by knowing when to let yourself become a pinball and when to freeze everything on the screen with a super bark special.
The soundtrack to this game is super catchy and it’s full of memes and other silliness that I love to see indie games sneak in. After about five hours, I’ve been having a blast and I’m still playing it despite knowing there’s likely a lot more content coming when the full game releases. I can’t wait to see how Dark Scrolls winds up when it releases soon!
You can add Dark Scrolls to your wishlist on Steam here!
