This one's as cool as it is adorable. Instead of a 30- or 40-hour role-playing game, The Swords of Ditto condenses a full RPG experience in two- or three-hour chunks. And due to the cyclical nature of this game, and the small repetitions of gameplay (that's the "Ditto" in the game name), you'll then have your next playthrough build upon the legacy of the previous playthrough. Depending how your previous game went, this new game could have the townfolk talking poorly about you, or erecting a statue in the town square in your honor, or, perhaps, your playthrough could've gone so poorly that the next generation lives under the thumb of an evil lord. The Swords of Ditto uses the term "micro RPG" to describe what it's doing. I love how the legacy begins to build, while the previous fallen heroes become a part of the mythology and (somewhat) a part of the origin story of whoever your current hero is.
Art-wise, they realized it would be hard to stand out, visually, if they'd gone with just another beautiful 8-bit-looking game. Instead they went for a cartoon look. It's vibrant and immediately gripping.
Putting two kids on an adventure was a no-brainer decision for The Swords of Ditto's developer. It's couch co-op only, if you go co-op. No rando online encounters. It's single-player too, though, if you don't have anyone to share the couch with.
The reveal trailer popped up last week, but the video below is the developer speaking rapidly about deeper ideas behind the game's creation, and also some of the layered combat.
The Swords of Ditto is coming to PlayStation 4 and PC some time in 2018.
