Hotly anticipated iPad app Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP — the collaborative effort of Toronto-based Capybara Studio; artist Craig Adams, known as Superbrothers; and musician Jim Guthrie — was released last week, and is exactly the game iPad has been waiting for. Reminiscent of old-school point-and-click adventure games, Sword & Sworcery combines humor, striking visual design (who knew pixels could look so interesting?) and a kickass soundtrack — heed the app’s instructions to play the game with headphones on.
Users control the character of a Scythian warrior on a quest to, well, that’s not entirely clear until you get going. There is a lot of walking around, controllable by tapping or holding the screen, which might feel aimless at first, but that’s entirely the point. Sword & Sworcery doesn’t spell out your challenges or the puzzles you’ll need to solve. It’s up to your brain to solve the riddles and to figure out what to do next. Often those answers can be found through audio “clues” in Guthrie’s entrancing soundtrack. When you come across combat situations, you flip your iPad into portrait mode and control your shield and sword with the corresponding icons.
Any text provided in game is tweetable via the integrated Twitter function (you might have seen #sworcery appear in your feed). I haven’t completed the game and I haven’t yet seen a required need to use this feature, but I have found the writing to be just the right blend of snark and sass. (Example: “We were like groan not another fetch quest amirite?”)
I’ve been intentionally vague about Sword & Sworcery’s game content because I think it’s better that users head into the magical forest with as little knowledge as possible. One expectation you can form, though: You will love this game.
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