An early screenshot from "Spire". Photo: AFP
"We want to make 'Spire' a game where it's fun to watch extremely skilled players as they sprint around dashing off walls while switching items and combining their effects in clever ways," explained Hitbox's Woodley Nye in an explanatory post, describing the team as being "well into the development of 'Spire.'"
The game's random level generator is "curated," intended to ensure a mixture of novelty, intentionality, and careful pacing throughout, with a "weekly spire" offered to the community as a regular leaderboard challenge.
There was also room for a shout-out to some of the best players of 1999 title "Quake 3 Arena" and its fan-made "Challenge ProMode Arena" add-on, "Quake 3 Arena" being one of several first-person shooter games that epitomize speed of thought and movement -- free games "Warsow" (2006) and "Xonotic" (2010) are of the same ilk.
These names might not be mainstream, but "Call of Duty" has been running on a variant of the "Quake" engine since its gestation in 2003; 2011 title "Brink" incorporated sliding and jumping manouvers and ran on similar technology.
Stylish sweep-'em-up "Dustforce" won a number of awards surrounding its January 2012 release, including first place in IndiePub's 2010 Independent Development Contest, the Excellence in Audio award at the Independent Game Festival China in 2012, and an Honorable Mention for Excellence in Visual Art at the original 2012 IGF in San Francisco.