Team17, the independent developer and games label best known for working with games like Overcooked, Yooka-Laylee, and the Worms series, gave us an opportunity to play some of their upcoming titles at their E3 Show Floor Booth. We had the chance to play Overcooked 2, Mugsters, and Planet Alpha. All of these titles are going to be available on Nintendo Switch and are expected to be released sometime in 2018.
Physics-Based, Isometric Puzzle Solving with a Friend
One of my favorite indie games on Switch is PAN-PAN a tiny big adventure. PAN-PAN is an isometric, open plain adventure title littered with environmental puzzles that are discovered and solved through exploration. Mugsters is reminiscent of PAN-PAN not only in its presentation but in the way the player interacts with the environment to solve puzzles and complete objectives. Mugsters and PAN-PAN are wholly different in three major aspects, however, and that’s in the size of their levels, the way they communicate their objectives, and the physics-based engine used to interact with items and other resources.
While PAN-PAN has one large open, interconnected map, Mugsters divides its island-sized sandboxes into levels for players to explore. These islands are bright, solid-colored, and clean in their detail. Mugsters is a lot more focused on what it wants the player to accomplish because each level lists its objectives up front. Some of the levels we played asked us to destroy satellites, save humans, and collect crystals. The islands have items and resources you can use to complete those objectives.
The physics-based engine allows the players to manipulate objects how they want such as throwing an explosive barrel at a satellite to destroy it. Achieving these objectives usually leads the player to their escape route or vehicle, which in the levels we played required us to fly a biplane off the island. Mugsters gives players the freedom to explore the island and complete its objectives however the player sees fit, and this kind of liberty can lead to exciting moments of emergent gameplay especially when playing with another person.
Later levels become more hectic as players have to deal with aliens that have taken over the earth. These aliens threaten the player by chasing them around on foot and in their UFOs, causing solving puzzles and completing objectives life or death situations. Thankfully, players get access to a variety of vehicles to escape (or fight against) the aliens. By mixing aliens, vehicles, and physics-based interaction, Mugsters makes environmental puzzle solving a thrilling and fast-paced experience.
Mugsters is being developed by Reinkout and published by Team17. There is no confirmed release date for this title as of now, but it is expected to be released sometime later this year. WhenevMunstersers is officially released, rest assured that we will be covering it here on NinMobileNews.
Note: We did not play a demo of Mugsters on a Nintendo Switch. This hands-on impression was conducted on a PC with Xbox controllers.
A special thank you to Team17 for the opportunity to play this game at E3 2018.
