Retro-inspired games are huge in the indie development space, and they also had a large presence at Sony?s PlayStation Experience 2017 expo. I took a few minutes to get some hands-on time with the upcoming retro-style action RPG platformer, Chasm. It looks to be one of the more interesting retro-inspired titles currently in development.
Familiar Faces
This isn?t the first time I?ve seen Chasm, and it probably won?t be the last time before its release, either. Bit Kid, Inc. has been working on this game for over 4 years now, and in fact when they launched their Kickstarter they were then known as Discord Games. The small team making this game has a ton of passion for it, something which shows in the multiple years of dedicated effort to launching it. The so-called ?Metroidvania? genre of games is a very competitive space these days. Games that feature tight platforming, and difficult combat, are almost too numerous to count. So what could developer Bit Kid, Inc. do to make their game unique" Well, they opted for having areas that were procedurally assembled. This is slightly different than full-on procedural generation. Each room that the player will encounter is hand-crafted by the development team. But the order in which the rooms are played will be pseudorandom. The game will try to ensure that the player doesn?t see too many of the same type of room in a row, as well.

Smoother Than You Remember
Chasm also features something described as ?authentic pixel art.? The...