Arlo’s Adventure Preview

You might think “Aw man, being a wizard must be so cool. Nothing bad ever happens to wizards.” You’d be mistaken. It’s hard to be a man or woman of magic; your powers can vanish at the drop of a (pointed) hat, and then you’re stuck doing horrible Muggle stuff like driving to the store to get milk instead of summoning a hell-cow and drinking sustenance directly from its fiery teat. Needless to say, wizards typically don’t put up with the loss of their powers, and will go to great lengths to recover them—hence a game like Arlo’s Adventure for iOS.

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Be an 8-bit platforming wizard in Arlo’s Adventure.

You might think “Aw man, being a wizard must be so cool. Nothing bad ever happens to wizards.” You’d be mistaken. It’s hard to be a man or woman of magic; your powers can vanish at the drop of a (pointed) hat, and then you’re stuck doing horrible Muggle stuff like driving to the store to get milk instead of summoning a hell-cow and drinking sustenance directly from its fiery teat. Needless to say, wizards typically don’t put up with the loss of their powers, and will go to great lengths to recover them—hence a game like Arlo’s Adventure for iOS.

Inspired by ye olde NES platformers of long ago, Arlo’s Adventure is an action game engineered to pay tribute to 8-bit fare. You play as a wizard, Arlo, who has lost his powers to a mysterious dark force and is kind of naked without them (metaphorically).

To recover the good stuff, Arlo needs to run, jump and hop across 36 levels scattered across grasslands, caves, castles, and mountains. He regains his powers gradually, which is a good thing because the spiders, trolls, and zombies that are in his way won’t go quietly into the good night. Arlo needs to use magic to freeze, burn, and slash the bad guys—especially the bosses that menace him at the end of some stages. He also stumbles on physics puzzles that can only be solved with the aid of his spells.

Arlo's Adventure

Arlo’s Adventure is coming to the App Store on February 17.

In the early aughts, Nadia fell into writing with the grace of a brain-dead bison stumbling into a chasm. Over the years, she's written for Nerve, GamePro, 1UP.com, USGamer, Pocket Gamer, Just Labs Magazine, and many other sites and magazines of fine repute. She's currently About.com's Guide to the Nintendo 3DS at ds.about.com.