by Jon Lyons

Temple Death, the second game in Magiko Gaming‘s PLATFORMANCE series and the follow up to 2010′s excellent Castle Pain is available today on Xbox Live Indie Games.  The PLATFORMANCE games are expert-level 2D platformers.  In other words these are extremely difficult yet fair platforming games in which the player runs, jumps, and dies many times along a two-dimensional plane.  Perfect controls, realistic physics, and “retro” presentation are trademarks of the XL2DP; Spelunky and Super Meat Boy come to mind as pinnacles of the genre.  What PLATFORMANCE delivers is not only the perfect venue to showcase your decades’ worth of platforming experience and skill, but also some of the most affordable hardcore thrills available on the 360.

Temple Death takes place exactly 1,000 years after Castle Pain, shifting the medieval ambiance of the first game to a style more akin to Raiders of the Lost Ark.  Although you now control a cute little safari man with useless whip and pistol as opposed to a similarly cute and impotent little knight, Temple Death plays exactly like its predeccesor.  The game consists of one massive “level” in the form of a giant animated panting which can be viewed from three different zoom levels.  Admittedly there is no big surprise in Temple Death as hilarious as the screen-pan in Castle Pain that reveals what may be the best platforming hazard ever,  rest assured that Temple Death will kill you creatively and require the use of all three zoom levels in order to effectively complete the game on the harder difficulties.

What sets Castle Pain and Temple Death apart from other well-designed one-dollar XL2DPs on XBLIG  (Aban Hawkins & the 1000 Spikes, The Deep Cave)  is PLATFORMANCE ‘s death and respawning mechanic.  Although a high level of skill is required to play any of these games, dying usually places you at the start of the level, or worse, the start of the game.  In PLATFORMANCE checkpoints are situated after every few obstacles which allowing you to respawn inches away from the site of your latest demise.  The lives are infinite but PLATFORMANCE awards players who finish quickly and with fewer deaths.  The one “Game Over” scenario: touching the ever-present ghost that slowly follows you.   The tension generated from the ghost breathing down your neck combined with the gratifying rush of blazing your best score on the online boards will have you improving your “platformances” until your thumbs fuse with your game pad.  And for one humble dollar a piece you can own both PLATFORMANCE titles for less than the cost of one ride on the New York City subway.

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