Despite the horrors its name might imply, Age Twisters it’s a surprisingly nifty little thing. I had the opportunity to check it out at Gamescom, and to my delight its co-op adventuring provided a lovely tonic to the various violent delights the show provided elsewhere.
Developed by Piccolo Studios in Barcelona, Age Twisters – if you’re wondering where the name comes from – thrusts two players into the shoes of a grandfather or granddaughter after they receive a strange message from a long-gone mother / daughter. That message arrives with two bracelets enabling the titular age twisting: the ability for our pair to change to various points in their life – child, teenager, adult, elder – at will, each stage providing abilities that can help them solve puzzles.
What follows is a witty adventure that, as you’ve probably assumed by the premise, is accessible to practically anyone. Piccolo Studios co-founders Jordi Ministral and Alexis Corominas told me the team wanted to make a more cheerful adventure after their last two titles – Arise: A Simple Story and After Us – delved into darker subject matter.
“The story is tied to the generation gap,” says Ministral. “Old people being grumpy and greedy, the world is a mess and it’s their fault. Young people, lazy snowflakes who don’t want to work and complain about everything. All they want to do is drugs and party.
“The stereotypes! It’s something we all do. And you shift, I can feel myself shifting already from complaining about older people to complaining about younger people […] We wanted to make a game that brings generations together. This game doesn’t make a speech to you, but it’s something we convey through it.”
And in Age Twisters, colours erupt off the screen; vivid hues of greens and blues match the upbeat tone of the game, immediately grabbing your attention. Most of the demo I played was set within a giant factory where chickens were plentiful. Here, in child form, our protagonists can swap places with these chickens, and so quickly leaping between these fowl creatures became core to progression. A bit of hasty swapping and a few seconds of brainstorming was all it took to solve the game’s many hurdles, and I’m told this breezy simplicity is intentional, so the game remains accessible.
And throughout my demo, there are some lovely touches connected to how each of the four ages manifests. Setting your character to their oldest age, for instance, prevents you from traversing certain obstacles: alas, your bones are rubbish and your joints are donezo. You can dodge to avoid certain projectiles or enemies, however, but doing so while old appears to have a longer recovery animation – which tickled me, and it makes sense!
Also delightful is the way both characters engage in chatter while moving between puzzles, and the sentences they’ll use depends on the age they are during the conversation. Young children make jokes; adults are more confident and offer few pearls of wisdom. Better still, you can change ages mid-conversation, altering the sort of response you’ll hear sentence-by-sentence.
What about failure states? Well there’s no respawn in Age Twisters. Instead, rather than killing you outright, projectiles shot by enemies or slimy surfaces either age you up or de-age you – often drastically. If you get aged below a young child, you’ll become a useless baby and will need to be revived by your co-op partner. If you’re aged above an old person you’ll be turned into a skeleton! You’ll die for real, sort of! Thankfully, much like the baby, you can be aged back to life by your co-op partner.
This skeleton business is indicative of the kinds of silly hijinx and slapstick humour running throughout Age Twisters. Enemies, for instance, are an army of goofy goons, frequently seen fumbling over themselves or getting chased by chickens. Expect the sort of fizzy comedy seen in an animated children’s movie – made lovingly.
And of course, throughout it all is that core idea – of bringing generations together, as Ministral put it. . According to a recent New York Times report, a third of young adults are living with their parents due to intense economic pressures. “It happens the same in Barcelona, people are living with their parents until they are 30 or 30-something it’s crazy,” said Ministral.
But hey, if these young adults are living at home, then there’s an opportunity for Age Twisters to deliver its message. “I mean yeah,” laughs Ministral, “If it makes them get together and have a nice time, why not?”
This preview is based on a preview at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany. Krafton provided flights and accommodation.
