Spiders are quite possibly one of the most mixed-emotion creatures out there. A barn or bridge spider is a horror from the worst nightmare depths of creation, but a little one can be super-cute, especially if you can persuade it to drop a web between your fingers. The really big tropical ones in person can send a shudder of revulsion running straight down the spine, but photoshop in a set of bongos beneath their twitching mandibles and it’s weirdly hilarious. There’s no question that spiders can be a hard sell, but not an impossible one if the arachnophobia isn’t too bad. Webbed is a pixel-art platformer starring a spider that manages to fall on the cute side of things, and its demo is part of the Autumn Steam Game Festival.
The webbed demo isn’t a slice of the full game but rather an open playground that starts off with instructions and then sets you free to chase after a handful of objectives. The goals aren’t anything too major, just enough to make you explore the area in full, and to accomplish them you’ll need to play with all the spider’s abilities. There’s no real threat in the demo, but it’s more than fun enough swinging all over the place that there doesn’t need to be one.
The spider’s basic ability is the web, of course, and it can shoot two types. The primary kind is a line to swing from, shooting out and latching on to a distant surface. It doesn’t fly forever but does have good range, and once it’s attached you may use it to swing at a nicely zippy speed. The other type of web is almost identical to the first, a single strand that latches on to a distant point, but the spider stays where it is and can attach the other end to a second surface. This makes a handy bridge between points that the spider can walk over, and you can even attach a new line to an existing one to create your own fully-functional spider web that not only acts as a handy series of new paths but also catches flies buzzing through the area. The final ability is the thematically-strange laser, useful for breaking thin walls or errant web-strands, and even pushing the larger bugs around when necessary.
And that’s pretty much the whole demo there, except for the bit about how good it feels to swing around the area. The most important part is that the spider’s moves just work, and it doesn’t take a whole lot of practice to start swinging everywhere, webbing up the larger open sections just for the fun of building something, and peeking into odd corners to find whatever might be there. Which, admitted, isn’t a whole lot, and you can clear all the challenges in twenty minutes or so, but it’s a nice chunk of gameplay that promises to pay off nicely for the more goal-based game to come. The demo isavailable on Steamright now through this coming Tuesday, so give it a play while it’s still around.
