Earthen Dragon
released on Jun 22, 2023
The nameless dragon has left his valley to save a friend, but the lands beyond lie in ruin.
Reviews View More
Finished this in about 5-6 hours! Great game. Fun romp through a small open world, loved climbing around the levels and the little ledges. Some interesting environment puzzling and tricky platforming near the end. Also liked all the enemies with the weak point eyes in strange locations. I really like how you can see the personality and level design quirks of the designer come through with all the secret placement, level layouts, etc.
Some more thoughts from Cohost: https://cohost.org/hantani/post/3181592-earthen-dragon-2023
I've been playing some of origamihero's new Action RPG, Earthen Dragon! Here's some footage on the bird..X...site
switch: https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/earthen-dragon-switch/
steam games (doesnt have earthen dragon) https://store.steampowered.com/search/?developer=origamihero%20games
some of my clips of earthen dragon:
https://twitter.com/han_tani2/status/1713347998930092398
https://twitter.com/han_tani2/status/1713340302327787601
I first encountered origamihero's work in 2008 when a freeware platformer, Treasure Hunter Man, was covered on the indiegames blog. (There's actually an Easter Egg to it in Anodyne 1!) Since then they've maintained regular, big releases - some commercial, working as a solo dev on the side. Point and click adventures, 3D platformers, 2D platformers, etc. Their games have a really unique worldview and atmosphere to them that I think others here might appreciate - a bunch are on Steam/Switch (though this is only Switch?)
Earthen Dragon so far plays as a basic platformer (single jump, later you unlock a hover) with some simple combat (single punch, some spells). You explore a small open world and go through dungeons. What I really like is how much it commits to the simplicity of these parts. There's no complicated movesets, stat trees, etc - instead you're this lonesome, amnesiac dragon (who can't fly!) looking for a ladder to get his kitten out of a tree. In the quest for that ladder he has to leave his solitary domain and find that hundreds of years have passed while some kind of curse has ravished his homeland. It's told extremely minimally, and I find the kind of simplicity with which it's told to be pretty moving. Instead of fancy cinematics, the world and its parts kind of 'speak' as a composite whole. Characters talk about a curse having messed up the physicality of building interiors, and it's not just a plot device - you just played through a level with twisted corridors, requiring you to jump onto windowsills of a messed up mansion.
The way you only rarely encounter other characters, and it feels like a relief amongst the otherwise quiet world - it's a very Dark Souls 1/SMT 3 kind of narrative density, but much more emotionally straightforward than those. The world structure reminds me a little of Nier - you get some fast travel points but for the most part are trying to navigate to the next destination or dungeon. There's some simple platforming puzzles which build off of 'realistic' castle walls or homes. Combat has no lock-on ability (I think), so you're forced to roll around and jump. It's nonstandard, but I find that everything taken together lends the world a really memorable physicality. The slow way you walk through the levels, looking for items or keys.
What's nice is that because the dev has a lot of level design experience, the dungeons themselves haven't fallen into any repetitive paradigm like you'd expect in the average 3d action (same enemy copy pasted 50 times, 1000 skills, dodge roll, etc..) - this game mixes up interesting level geometry with different types in just the right amount.
Some more thoughts from Cohost: https://cohost.org/hantani/post/3181592-earthen-dragon-2023
I've been playing some of origamihero's new Action RPG, Earthen Dragon! Here's some footage on the bird..X...site
switch: https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/earthen-dragon-switch/
steam games (doesnt have earthen dragon) https://store.steampowered.com/search/?developer=origamihero%20games
some of my clips of earthen dragon:
https://twitter.com/han_tani2/status/1713347998930092398
https://twitter.com/han_tani2/status/1713340302327787601
I first encountered origamihero's work in 2008 when a freeware platformer, Treasure Hunter Man, was covered on the indiegames blog. (There's actually an Easter Egg to it in Anodyne 1!) Since then they've maintained regular, big releases - some commercial, working as a solo dev on the side. Point and click adventures, 3D platformers, 2D platformers, etc. Their games have a really unique worldview and atmosphere to them that I think others here might appreciate - a bunch are on Steam/Switch (though this is only Switch?)
Earthen Dragon so far plays as a basic platformer (single jump, later you unlock a hover) with some simple combat (single punch, some spells). You explore a small open world and go through dungeons. What I really like is how much it commits to the simplicity of these parts. There's no complicated movesets, stat trees, etc - instead you're this lonesome, amnesiac dragon (who can't fly!) looking for a ladder to get his kitten out of a tree. In the quest for that ladder he has to leave his solitary domain and find that hundreds of years have passed while some kind of curse has ravished his homeland. It's told extremely minimally, and I find the kind of simplicity with which it's told to be pretty moving. Instead of fancy cinematics, the world and its parts kind of 'speak' as a composite whole. Characters talk about a curse having messed up the physicality of building interiors, and it's not just a plot device - you just played through a level with twisted corridors, requiring you to jump onto windowsills of a messed up mansion.
The way you only rarely encounter other characters, and it feels like a relief amongst the otherwise quiet world - it's a very Dark Souls 1/SMT 3 kind of narrative density, but much more emotionally straightforward than those. The world structure reminds me a little of Nier - you get some fast travel points but for the most part are trying to navigate to the next destination or dungeon. There's some simple platforming puzzles which build off of 'realistic' castle walls or homes. Combat has no lock-on ability (I think), so you're forced to roll around and jump. It's nonstandard, but I find that everything taken together lends the world a really memorable physicality. The slow way you walk through the levels, looking for items or keys.
What's nice is that because the dev has a lot of level design experience, the dungeons themselves haven't fallen into any repetitive paradigm like you'd expect in the average 3d action (same enemy copy pasted 50 times, 1000 skills, dodge roll, etc..) - this game mixes up interesting level geometry with different types in just the right amount.