Underworld Life Demo

Escaping from dungeons is a pretty regular theme in video games, although you are more likely to venture into them in most cases to look for treasure and monsters to defeat. Besides role-playing games, platformers and adventure games can also take you to dark dungeons, even if you must accomplish different objectives depending on the genre.

Underworld Life is a 2.5D platformer in which you play as a skeleton trying to escape from a dark underground cavern. The road ahead is littered with all sorts of traps and enemies, on the other hand, so you have to put your wits to the test in order to pass some of the obstacles. Not only that, but good reaction times are a must in order to jump over some traps and clear the gaps.

The story is not that important in this case, given the fact that you are never given a name or too many explanations regarding the main character and his situation. Hence, the focus is on the platforming itself, and everything is more or less satisfactory in this regard. You jump over spikes, push boxes around to get a lift, as well as activate switches to unlock the way forward.

Although sometimes it’s possible to avoid enemy contact by moving quickly enough, other times you are forced to use force to get around them. In such cases, your character can throw bones at the target, and you have control over the power of the throw. This can be a bit of a bother if you are trying to do a speedrun, but the mechanics are pretty fun if you are just trying to pass the levels at your own pace.

Since this is an early demo of the game, there are some problems you have to watch out for, including annoying bugs. Changing between stances can make your character get stuck between animations, which impedes your movement and prevents you from jumping. It’s also worth mentioning that the level design is a bit repetitive at this point, with not much variation in color or environment.

In spite of the bugs and the shortcomings, Underworld Life is still a very fun experience, not to mention challenging. Hence, we can only hope that the full version is going to be more refined and full of more diverse puzzles.