Raskulls Preview: Dig, Please

Halfbrick Studio’s early 2010 Xbox Live Arcade Game Raskulls looks and plays like the kind of old-school platformer that surely someone must have thought of years ago.

Would someone have thought of creating a bunch of side-scrolling levels that are accessed from an overworld map, a la Super Mario World, but supports four players?

Wait. What if the four players were racing? And a lot of the levels involved going underground?

And what if there were often blocks in the way that you had to smash through? As in: What if that seemed to be the main point and allowed me to happily beat one of the game’s developers at PAX East?

And what if you could hit the other players or zap them with your special power? What if you could collect frenzy power from the things you destroy and from big orange fields of energy — and what if activating that frenzy power let you run faster and punch through bricks more quickly?

What if this game was cheerful but everyone in it had a skull for a face?

Surely this has already been done? No? If not, look for Raskulls, downloadable for the Xbox 360 on Xbox Live Arcade in the first half of this year.