Teeworlds

By: Alehkhs

On: June 27th, 2008

Take the weapons from the Quake and Unreal Series (the shotguns, the grenade-launchers, the laser-cannons), throw in swords, over-sized wooden mallets, and grapple-hooks for good measure and give the whole arsenal to a tiny, round, and colorful race of giggling cuteness that one might come across if say… Tribbles got into a large stash of food. Now force these creatures to fight each other in battles ranging from death matches to rounds of capture-the-flag.

Well, actually, don’t do that – it’s already been done, and turned into an surprisingly polished and addictive experience.

Officially, Teeworlds (originally titled “Teewars”) is a 2d multiplayer-only platform shooter available on Windows, Mac, and Linux, and with its gunning and grappling cuteness it recalls memories of games like Soldat, Liero, and the cute-but-brutal landscapes of the Worms Series. Although it’s only in version 0.4.2, Teeworlds has already shown amazing progress and is perfectly playable right now.

The controls of Teeworlds are standard controls for and big-title FPS (WASD for movement, number keys for weapons, click to fire, etc) and fit the gameplay very well. Of course, the player can remap any of these keys if need be. The customization doesn’t stop there though; each player can customize the shape and color of their individual character or even make their own maps via the map maker. Another aspect of the controls I really thought was innovative for a game of this type was the emoticon system: just push leftShift, and a circular menu will appear with several choices. Simply move the mouse over the emoticon you want to appear over your character, and release shift. Simple as that.

You can even go one step further if that level of freedom isn’t enough: Teeworlds is an open-source project, which has led to many, many, custom skins and mods on the part of the community.

Game play is easy to learn, and soon you’ll be a double-jumpin’ grapple-swingin’ gun-wieldin’ machine, so be sure to check this game out.