Maybe you hear the phrase "British shorthair" and can't decide whether someone's talking about the guy from The Clash or your best friend, Mr. Mittens. Cats and punks have always been cut from the same cloth, callous toward authority and eager to knock things over, and 2D roguelite Clawpunk is milking the center of that Venn diagram for all its worth.
A new trailer for the hectic action platformer dropped at today's PC Gaming Show Tokyo Direct, and though the soundtrack sounds a little more metal-inspired than punk, it's got an anarchy gauge, destructible environments, and nine anthropomorphized feline cyberpunks speaking truth to power by chucking oversized weapons at it. It certainly looks the part to match the trailer's tagline: "scratch, smash, survive."
Plenty of action games are already out there huffing the graffiti fumes of cyberpunk aesthetics for their retro cool, but what interests me most about Clawpunk is its hero-based setup and card system. The game's Steam page promises the ability to "discover and collect special cards … to mutate and enhance your cats' abilities," which cultivates the itch in me to hunt for absurd synergies and go wild.
There's also a nod at "rage attacks"—which I suspect have something to do with that anarchy gauge in the trailer—meant to encourage "daring players" to play aggressively and stick their neck out if they want to dish out optimal damage. Combine a system like that with destructible environments, and you've got a recipe for players to play so recklessly they're headed back to the start in no time. And isn't that what roguelites are all about?
Clawpunk releases November 14 and is available to wishlist on Steam.
Check out every game, trailer, and announcement in the PC Gaming Show Tokyo Direct.
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