Every so often I wander over to Itch.io for some hidden indie gems, and today’s game is Unsung Warriors – Prologue. After rumors spread about a treasure in an ancient crypt, tons of tribesmen in the time 300 B.C. sought after it. As time passed, none of them seemed to come back, and it’s up to your character to change that.
Unsung Warriors – Prologue is currently in development by two developers: Osarion Games and Mountaineer. On September 17, they released their free demo on Itch.io which led to it being a featured title. With about an hour of content, you start out exploring the ancient crypt running into some basic skeleton enemies, a fun escape sequence, a water level, and a boss fight to finish it off.
What’s neat about the platformer is it includes local play if you want to play with a friend. However, after having played the demo alone, it’s also one hundred percent possible to play either way. Whether you’re cutting through skeletons with a sword or shooting at them from far away with a bow.
The difficulty spikes a little bit high in some areas, but it mainly forces you to take a step back and think differently. A fight may require a couple of dashes, a double jump to avoid an arrow, or even deflecting an arrow with your sword. At times the developer throws a swarm of skeletons at you with a unique way to handle them. Fortunately for once in the game industry, a water level in Unsung Warriors – Prologue isn’t the worst level you’ll come across.
While I didn’t test every weapon or magical ability offered in the store in-game, there are a variety of weapons to use. From the start of Unsung Warriors, you begin with a sword, bow, and shield. Which allows you to do pretty much what you would expect. Wombo combo with the sword, shoot at targets from afar with a bow, and block with your shield.
Since using the default weapons is just a little too easy for me, I immediately sold all three of them instead. Now you might be thinking, what are you going to do with no weapons? Don’t worry, I was able to pool my money together at the store to buy a two-handed weapon. Going all-in for damage worked well for getting enemies out of the way one by one, but not quite when there was a horde of them. Especially the pesky bowmen when you’re a glass cannon.
Games like Unsung Warriors – Prologue are those small indie projects you see pop up that can easily get hidden. This isn’t surprising when there are so many low-quality games cluttering websites. Especially if you wander through Steam after what Steam Greenlight did for the platform (both good and bad). This one is a basic but fun platformer and I’m curious to see how the development goes. It looks like the goal is for multiple locations to explore, similar to the ancient crypt shown in the demo.
If you’re interested in trying the demo, it’s available here on Itch.io. The developer mentions plans for a crowdfunding campaign at some point. If you’d like to follow their development, you can find them on their Twitter account for the game here. Or you can take a look at their Steam store page as well.
Jeff is a journalist with over 10 years of experience writing, streaming, and making content about video games. With an associate degree in journalism, he’s a sucker for RPGs, survival games, roguelikes, and more.