“Demon Turf” is an interesting platforming adventure game that has some charm, some annoying music, and offers quite a bit of internal replayability (that is to say, visiting worlds you’ve completed a second time offers up new challenges, new layouts, and new collectables to pick up) and if you’re a speedrunning fanatic, the movement system featured here has a wide array of possible exploits and ways to bend the rules and get better scores.
The story is really, really simple: the main character wants to overthrow the current leader of the demon realm but must first kick out a bunch of his top goons and claim their titular “turf” – this is done very simply by just getting enough specific items in each “zone” of the game by running through the levels featured within. If you’ve played a game like this, then you know what you’re in for with the level design, by the way. Each zone has a theme and each level follows that theme in interesting and sometimes confounding ways. There is a beach/ocean theme, there is an ice world, there is a major cityscape (my personal favorite just due to the open-ness of the areas to explore), volcanos and giant windstorms and ski slopes and blah blah blah. I might come across as dismissive here, but the themes are serviceable for this kind of game and the more cartoony and thus rather plain art for the game works well for everything you’ll see here.
The actual gameplay comes in two flavors: Basic level exploration for various sweet treats and the primary goal: Batteries… and then the Boss fights. Both are actually really good, with some levels being a blast to play and more than one boss fight being a genuine thrill that put a smile on my face more than once. The platforming itself is almost never slippery (aside from aforementioned ice levels) and everything feels fair and tight, when using all your abilities or just standard jumping. There is swimming that doesn’t feel unforgiving, there is gliding and flying and some lite-combat to be done, but mostly just just time your jumps and collect the cakes and get to the credits.
The boss fights, though, can range from incredibly well designed (I love the flying bird chase and the first battle with the giant pig) to kind of infuriating and lacking in good checkpoints (that hydra fight was some BS from time to time). You will get new items for traversal and be tested on your knowledge of the previous items (I like the wheel, myself) throughout and while I said that the checkpoints in that one fight can be finnicky… let me explain to you the best part of the game.
The primary innovation that this game brings to the table is the ability to set your own checkpoint in most levels (not counting bosses). You press and hold a button when you think you need to put one down (usually after a large and difficult platforming gauntlet) and then next time you die you will start over there. Or, if you missed some good stuff to collect, you can warp between and use the games wayfinding system to guide you back to that item you left behind. Its a great system and makes it so you can basically set your own difficulty. You can even buy more checkpoints to use in the game’s item shops (as well as change your appearance or get other abilities) and trust me you will likely want them for the last level of the base game (I did not play the DLC).
All in all, this is a fun and not-over-long platformer that works incredibly well on Deck and I recommend it to anyone wanting a fast and fun thinking game to play. It won’t stick with you, really, after a time, but I had a lot of fun playing it and would look forward to more from this developer and more from this series.
skylerbartels 