Sunflowers is a relatively new developer, with only a few significant titles under its belt. While it hasn’t had much success in receiving glamorous feedback on its projects, it's managed to tackle the real-time strategy genre on a number of occasions, leaving us with a bit more faith in its upcoming project.
ParaWorld takes place in a parallel dimension stuck between a prehistoric world, where primitive humans and dinosaurs reign supreme, and a modern-day world in the 19th century. The story of the game has you playing through the events of a scientist named Jarvis Babbit, who uncovers the secrets of creating dimensional gates. After learning how to utilise this technology, Babbit and three young scientists venture off into the ParaWorld, where they’ll eventually become stranded, and where it’s up to you to guarantee their survival.
I just want to talk with the dinosaurs, walk with the dinosaurs...
In this world filled with dinosaurs, there are three very distinctive races that fit the needs of your typical real-time strategy gamer. The Norsemen are the hard nuts, boasting power through raw strength and might, and relying on their superior armoury skills and large and powerful structures. The Dustriders are tribesmen that excel in their ability to swiftly move from place to place with their mobile armies and buildings. Finally, the Dragon Clan are reliant on their ability to make powerful explosives and their advanced skills with machinery.
During our playtime with the game, we played as two of the game’s tribes – the Norsemen and the Dustriders. With the Norsemen, we found it was important to set up our defences early, raising watchtowers, gates and walls to block out an enemy invasion. The variety of units we could acquire was endless, with strong warriors, boar-riding spearmen, archers and battle rhinos all available, to name a few. With the Dustriders meanwhile, we found that moving our base and units around was more effective than flushing out our enemies. The unit types that you can build reflect the type of army you choose to select. Typically, playing as the defensive tribe will mean that your units will be able to absorb much more damage than any other team, while playing as the offensive tribe allows you to build fast-attacking units and large units that can destroy buildings with relative ease. In addition to your core units, each tribe can also construct hero type units that come equipped with more powerful special moves and abilities.
ParaWorld takes a fairly basic formula but reworks it into something more intriguing. Any of you who have played Age of Empires II or Warcraft will understand the fundamentals of how the game works. You’ll start off with one town centre, which can be upgraded throughout the game to provide more units and structures, and from there have workmen gather resources such as wood, food and stone to build more units and buildings. There’s also a fourth resource that adds a new layer to the system though: skulls. Skulls are used to promote individual units, which enables them to not only be more powerful on the battlefield but also have certain abilities not previously available. Defeating enemies, animals or destroying enemy buildings, increases your skulls figure. It’s a great addition to the already fantastic resource-gathering formula, which adds an all-new importance to killing enemies and creatures.
Building our very own Dinotopia.
The design of ParaWorld seems very inspiring too. Of the two levels we played, each one of them was very distinguishable in terms of its level design and creature inhabitants - the jungle-like level was especially satisfying, as dinosaurs ran across the vibrant landscape. The variety and design of units is done exceptionally well, with dinosaurs acting as substitutes for such units as battle rams or catapults.
Overall, ParaWorld is shaping up quite nicely and could be worth keeping an eye on. The gameplay is fairly simple and isn’t a great deal different from previous landmark real-time strategy games in the past. However, it’s the design and freshness of a prehistoric setting that has us intrigued and looking forward to the final version. If you'd like to experience the game for yourself, go here for the latest demo.
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