I’ve been dragging myself through the muck of complicated RPGs lately, and was glad to take a break from that when asked to preview Concursion, Puuba’s debut title. From quick screenshots of the game, I thought I was being presented with something similar to Nitrome’s Mega Mash. The difference lies in gameplay and aesthetic, however.
This gameplay trailer of the preview build illustrates the game’s premise beautifully:
Concursion is ambitious to say the least, and doesn’t appear to be a “jack of all trades, master of none.” The shifting between play styles is a central part of progressing through the game rather than the window dressing one might expect from a mash-up of this many styles. In one of my favorite early levels, you begin in a space suit with the ability to rocket upwards to avoid obstacles and enemies.
This space suit form has extreme offensive limitations, though. Eventually, I came across a green shard (collecting these was the goal in every level I played) surrounded by bricks I couldn’t break while wearing the spacesuit.
I did what one does best in the space suit and rocketed away, avoiding blasts from nearby spaceships shooting from rectangular tears in the world, to the tear I was aiming for, where I fell out a ninja.
This ninja mode, reminiscent of Ninja Gaiden, was definitely my favorite in Concursion. I proceeded to hack-and-slash my way through bricks surrounding another tear, and jumped through, finding myself flying a spaceship. I took some damage along the way (mainly from taking these awesome screenshots), but broke those bricks with my spaceship’s missiles, revealing the shard.
While the game still has a ways to go before its release, it’s definitely a successful blending of multiple retro styles. These styles play off of one another well, as frequent bounces between them are necessary to complete each level. If that cohesive blend of platforming, shooting, hacking-and-slashing, aerial exploration, and maze racing à la Pac-Man isn’t enough to hook you, the soundtracks actively adapting to each universe will.