Penarium Demo

Everyone wants a bit of excitement and adventure in their lives, although not too much. Life and death situations are rarely entertaining in real life, which is why video games are such a viable alternative. In essence, it’s always fun to deal with deadly traps and unforgiving odds when you have a reset button, although even that can get pretty frustrating after a point.

Penarium is a retro platformer and action game that allows you to test your reflexes when it comes to avoiding traps and staying alive while everything tries to kill you. This is not actually the classic type of platformer where you run from one end of the level to the other, because you are stuck in some sort of arena, and you have to survive a constant onslaught of deadly projectiles aimed at you.

The story talks about Willy, who’s a young boy in search of adventure after getting bored with working on his father’s farm. Hence, he gets recruited in some kind of circus arena, where he must prove his worth by surviving a vast array of dangers and traps. Your end goal is to collect items, or solve a variety of other puzzles while running for your life and paying attention to the changing environment.

Willy is only able to move around and jump, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to figure out how to play the game. The famous double-jump is present as well, so you can at least come up with some neat tricks if you are quick enough. The controls are very responsive and precise, especially if you decide to use a dedicated controller. However, the keyboard works just fine as well, although it may be a bit uncomfortable.

The graphics are exactly what you would expect from a retro platformer, which means that they are heavily pixelated. You can tell that the designers put some effort into the animations and the artwork, on the other hand, although it’s kind of disappointing that the backgrounds don’t change very often. As such, it might get too repetitive to play in the same arena over long periods of time, especially since you’ll die a lot and have to reset on a regular basis.

Even if Penarium has a few flaws in the design department, the hardcore difficulty level should attract a decent crowd and satisfy even the most demanding fans. Hence, if you do not mind having to replay the same levels dozens of times, this might be the game for you.