Lionstork Studios’ Facebook dungeon crawler goes underground
While most people are unlikely to enter an actual sewer, video games inexplicably revel in making players fight for their lives in these dark, dank subterranean cesspits. From Super Mario Bros to Diablo III, sewer levels have been a staple in many, many action, adventure, RPG and shooting titles over the years.
With generations of games priming players to expect fun, adventure and treasure in virtual sewers, it’s a natural setting for a dungeon crawler, and thus Sarah Ghost: The Sewer Defenders was born.
A Facebook game by Singapore-based Lionstork Studios, the game is a casual action adventure for the social media platform. Players explore labyrinths to complete quests, kill monsters, level up and of course, find treasure. The latter can be accomplished by the genre staple of finding and opening treasure chests, as well as beating the crap out of various destructible objects in the environment.
The Sewer Defenders follows a very simple storyline in which Sarah Ghost is the child of two research scientists who worked in the sewers to perfect a formula for eliminating pollution. An unfortunate lab accident affects the entire sewer network, causing her parents to turn into ghost-like beings and its denizens to mutate into monsters. As a friend of Sarah’s, the player has to take up arms to save both her parents and the entire sewer ecosystem.
All this just facilitates the gameplay, and the game is easy to pick up in the preview build provided. For those looking for deeper gameplay mechanics, players will eventually be able to craft and customise weapons, as well as mix different chemicals to achieve different gameplay effects.
According to Lionstork, Sewer Defenders will also include a level editor. Each player gets a Sewer Room, a personal, customisable space which can also be found in social games like The Sims Social and FarmVille. What differentiates the Sewer Room from those spaces is that players can customise the expandable Sewer Room to generate unique level maps, monsters and treasure for their friends to explore and play through.
“Controls for the game have been simplified for the casual Facebook gamer, with clicks directing the player character to where the gamer wants him or her to go or to attack monsters. Discovered treasure such as money, chemicals, XP stars and other resources are gathered via mouseover of the items.
It’s not Diablo III, but Sarah Ghost: The Sewer Defenders promises a casual dungeon crawl that players can play in short bursts. Its level editor has the potential for user-generated content that can keep both builders and visitors engaged for the long haul.
Sarah Ghost: The Sewer Defenders is slated for release in Q4 this year.
