Journey Below hits the App Store this week, and its retro-arcade trappings may not stand out a mile from the iOS crowd. However, one look at the developer should convince you to take a closer look.
Ravenous Games has been one of the most prolific and consistent iOS game developers since the App Store first launched. It has a discernible house style which is informed by an obvious love of the 8-bit and 16-bit era.
Journey Below is a typical Ravenous Games effort in many ways, but it offers a spin on the auto-runner that we haven't seen from the studio before. If you liked Downwell (and who didn't?), you'll recognise some of the elements here.
Here are seven reasons why Ravenous Games has become a seal of quality on the App Store.
This dungeon-crawling platformer has you picking a class from the time-honoured fantasy playbook (barbarian, mage, or rogue) and bashing or zapping everything within each compact dungeon. Classic Ravenous.
The fact that there are three of these suckers tells you how successful Ravenous has been with the Random Heroes formula. Each game is a joyfully frenetic platform-shooter, with stacks of weapons and outlandish playable characters to acquire.
The first Ravenous series to hit trilogy status, League of Evil 3 offers up super-difficult bite-size platforming challenges - with the customary tight controls. No one does virtual controls like Ravenous.
Here's another tight retro platformer from Ravenous, and at first glance you might think it's just a League of Evil reheat. But Infestor adds the twist of being able to take over the bodies of NPCs in order to utilise their unique abilities and facilitate your escape from the levels.
Ravenous isn't exclusively concerned with platformers. It also makes a mean roguelike, as the next two games will show. Pug's Quest sees you guiding the titular dog through randomly generated levels, avoiding patrolling guards and other hazards.
Tiny Rogue an is an even more explicit roguelike, as you can probably tell from the title. Once again you're scooting around top-down, randomised levels, but this time you're a knight who can carry the fight to the minions infesting each stage. It's a typically pure, no-nonsense take on the source material.
The era of the side-scrolling platformer was also the era of the side-scrolling beat-'em-up, so it was perhaps inevitable that Ravenous would have a crack. Beatdown pays tribute to Streets of Rage, Final Fight, and Double Dragon with a bout of pocket-sized fisticuffs - all in the stock Ravenous art style, of course.
