The floor is lava. It is known.
After making a name for themselves as patron saints of modern isometric and 2D gaming experiences with the releases of Invisible Inc., Don't Starve, and Mark of the Ninja, developer Klei Entertainment have chosen to make the transition to 3D gaming with a rather unusual new title called Hot Lava.
Feel free to gawk at its highly amusing gameplay trailer by clicking on the video below:
The premise of Hot Lava will be instantly familiar to anyone who has ever rearranged their home furniture as a child in order to avoid touching a floor filled with imaginary lava, as the gameplay here is based on that exact same concept. The big difference, as you might imagine, is that the lava in Hot Lava is very much real and will certainly kill you should you be unfortunate enough to make contact with it.
To avoid doing so, you'll need to bounce between conveniently placed elevated objects which have somehow not been consumed by the raging lava below. Many of the game's levels take place in ordinary environments in which a game of the floor is lava might have been played as a child (gyms, living rooms, etc.) although things do get a bit more surreal in some of the more challenging levels.
The best way to imagine playing Hot Lava, besides recounting childhood playtime memories, is to picture a mod for Mirror's Edge built around this concept. Much as in that title, the gameplay here consists of making expertly timed jumps between safe objects via a freerunning system in as quickly a time as possible. Those that enjoy Mirror's Edge time trials will really get a kick out of the way Hot Lava distills that game's freerunning gameplay down to its purest elements.
Actually, the best way to experience Hot Lava may be to enter for the chance to play it yourself by signing up for the free beta of the game now available on the developer's website.
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