The Girl and The Robot Alpha Preview

By – Steven Smith

Indie studio Flying Carpet Games is currently running a Kickstarter campaign for their upcoming title, The Girl and the Robot. The game being presented is a fantasy adventure 3D platformer. To show what the studio has in mind they have made an early build available. I was fortunate enough to play through this alpha version.  The game places you in the role of a young girl trapped in a large castle.  Who she is, how she got there and why is not known, though I am hopeful for a definite backstory.  There are no other people in the castle, instead robots patrol the grounds.  These robots are hostile towards the girl, who cannot defend herself apart from simply running away. Early on you will find one robot that looks different from the others, being brighter in color and better armed. For reasons unknown it has been locked in a cage.  Near by is an amulet which allows you to control this particular robot.

Using the amulet lets you switch between these two protagonists.  When you are not in control of a character they will remain motionless right where you left them.  The robot has a cool default pose, similar to a medieval statue of a knight, when not in use. This helps solidify its role as a guardian figure. The girl will go into a kind of trance state suggesting that she controls the robot. When playing as the robot you can pick the girl up and carry her on your shoulder.  This is a handy feature as it’s the fastest way to get both to the same place.

At first, when you can only play as the girl, gameplay is mostly finding switches and avoiding hostile robots. Once you have the ability to change characters, the game becomes a series of puzzles where you must use each character’s abilities to progress. The robot is strong and can fight, the girl is small and can jump to other platforms. Since this is just a short demo, there were not a lot of puzzles to try.  From what I saw they mostly involved having one character stand in a certain spot while the other pulled a lever or activated some other mechanism.  I look forward to seeing what other ways Flying Carpet is planning to make use of the game mechanics.

What little combat I encountered was handled by the robot armed with a sword, shield, bow and arrows.  All movements by the robot are somewhat slow and deliberate.  This added a bit of a challenge as you cannot quickly switch between your weapons and shield.  Fortunately, the other robots have the same limitations.  Fighting them becomes more about timing and strategy than simple button mashing.  The visual style of the game is somewhat unique.  I can see some influences from both fantasy and anime styles in many of the set pieces, especially Hayao Miyazaki films such as Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle. This contrasts well against the design of the robot which has an almost steampunk quality.  While most of the game world feels very spartan, I did see some nice details in certain areas.  There is ivy growing along some of the walls and I even saw a distant river in the background scenery.

Being that this is an early build there are several limitations and omissions.  While music has been written, and can be heard on the Kickstarter page, it is not in the game.  There are, however, sound effects and some ambient noise.  The game was built using the Unity engine, which provides some basic setup options on launch.  This made it a little harder for me to setup the keyboard and mouse controls to my liking as I wound up mostly using a gamepad instead.  There is also no way to save the game at this point in time.  The developers have mitigated this somewhat by allowing you to instantly travel between potential save points either right before or after a puzzle.

The game is scheduled for release late next year with a price tag around $10-$15.  In it’s current state there is no way to judge how the final product might be, but Flying Carpet is off to a good start.  With some more interesting puzzles and a compelling story, The Girl and the Robot could turn out to be well worth the asking price.  Currently the only version of the game available is the alpha I played.  For those interested in playing now, it is included as a Kickstarter reward for those backing with $9 Canadian or more.