I’m not going to waste any time here because it is absolutely already in the pun-forward name – Dark Scrolls is a hard game. It’s not a Souls-adjacent game, more a rogue-ish platformer, but its moniker implies exactly the level of challenge on offer as well as revealing its true genre trappings as an auto-scrolling platformer.
You and, hopefully, a friend will find yourselves ‘gently’ pushed through each of the game’s levels – randomly stitched together from hand-made sections – as the action continually moves forward, urging you to fight back against or at least navigate around the enemies and obstacles in your way. Your chosen character of a possible nine options will have their own unique attack and jump abilities, but each encourages you to hold down the attack button for a constant barrage of whatever it is you’ve got. Coupled with the auto-scrolling and the razor-thin margin for error, it gives the whole thing a very shmup vibe.
I have also discovered, after playing a small chunk of Dark Scrolls at a recent event hosted by publisher Devolver Digital, that I am very, very bad at it.
But! That’s the beauty of a game like this, and there’s a whole system of meta-progression you’d typically associate with a rogue-ish game. One of the more inventive wrinkles here occurs during an occasional walled-off battle sequence in which the screen stops scrolling for a moment and instead tasks you with eliminating waves of enemies. Do it fast enough, and you’ll unlock rewards and a huge skip through the stage to the next shopping opportunity.
The best way to ensure victory in Dark Scrolls will naturally be to bring a friend along for the ride, and the game certainly feels geared toward co-op play. Each of the playable characters has a completely different feel and special power, and finding effective combinations of them is part of the fun. In our preview build we had access to just four of them, representing the archetypes of mighty warrior, acrobatic rogue, spell-slinging wizard and… dog. If one player does fall during a stage, they become a ghostly whisp and can continue to float around the stage, blowing kisses of air at enemies to press them and open up them up to attack from the remaining player. There is, allegedly, also a revive mechanic, but I never quite worked that one out.
Despite the inherent frustration of playing a difficult game in a social setting with little practice, I had a ton of fun briefly getting to grips with Dark Scrolls. The chunky, pixelated sprites and very intentional physics hark back to a golden age of co-op platformers and tough-as-nails arcade shooters, but there are also plenty of modern ideas and twists to make it feel new and unique. It’s in good hands as well, in the works at Doinksoft, the talented engineers of games like Gunbrella and Gato Roboto.
I’m keen to check out more of this one when it drops, which isn’t far away at all – May 28 for PC and Nintendo Switch.
Previewed at an event hosted by Devolver Digital.