The new Driven Out game is coming to game screens and is already available for download via torrent. As a modern riff on Jordan Mechner’s classics Karateka and Prince of Persia, Driven Out follows the journey of a medieval farmer who, after a piece of strange technology falls from the sky, our hero must fight for the planet. I use the term “riff” because the pixel art graphics are lush and detailed, which was virtually impossible at the time these games were made. As seen in the delightful Driven Out animation, the farmer can barely lift his sword, let alone be proficient in combat. He cannot dodge, jump, or perform any special moves – her repertoire is limited to high, medium, or low level attacks and blocking in the same places. The only deep element of this combat system is how to correctly allocate time blocks, the player needs to react as quickly as possible, since almost half of the enemies are perfectly prepared in the combat system. Given this basic system, Driven Out’s swordplay is all about learning to read animations. There are 11 different areas in the campaign, each with up to four enemies, and I counted a total of 31 varieties, each with a completely unique set of animations for their attacks. In practice, this means that the player must learn the body language of each enemy so that they can determine where each attack is coming from. Some enemies are obviously telegraphing things, while others are cleverly feinting, doing extended combos, or even teleporting behind the player, causing them to spin around and keep their sword on the defensive.

System requirements

• Operating system: Windows 7, 8, 10
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.5Ghz
• RAM: 2GB
• Video card: GTS 450
• Hard Disk Memory: 100MB