EarthNight is a beautiful, brutal runner that’ll test you in the right ways

EarthNight is more than an endless runner. Developed by the Philly-based Cleaversoft, the creators have been at work on this hand-painted, glorious, tough beast of a game for five years.

It shows. Every moment is intense and layered with intricacy, from the look of the game to the glorious soundtrack, its premise and how it controls.

We’ll start there. The motion of most runners is typically that of jumping, ducking and perhaps sliding or punching. Here, EarthNight demands players jump, float with the left stick pointed up, dive with the left stick pointed down and, if you go with the tougher of the two characters, dashing and double-jumping. It’s a lot to take in, and I’ll admit that the initial feeling of EarthNight is overwhelming.

As for the two characters? You have the balding photojournalist named Stanley and the young Sydney. Sydney offers the more dynamic controls, and she’s the harder of the two characters to play. Dragons have taken over the world, humans become refugees in space and Sydney and Stanley are out to murder some beasts and reclaim the Earth.

It’s hard and heavy, and the game demands skill beyond what I had to offer during my first session. As I ran along the spine of a massive dragon, leaping to new heights, bouncing on monsters’ heads and jamming to the music, I found myself falling into a rhythm. The game started to bend a bit to my will as I maneuvered between obstacles.

Article source: https://www.technobuffalo.com/2017/03/12/earthnight-hands-on-preview/