The Awaysis demo has taught me what Diablo always needed was a crumb of Gang Beasts slapstick

I'll lay out my tastes straight away. I'm a little more… Garden Warfare than Modern Warfare. A little more Team Fortress than Quake. A little more silly string than regular string. What I love more than any individual, artfully designed videogame is the slapstick party version that inevitably rises in the wake of its success. Upcoming "dungeon brawler" Awaysis has the goods I'm looking for, comically warping a blend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures and Diablo through a physics-based funhouse mirror.

It's one of many tantalizing demos you can try out in the current Steam Next Fest, though it's just a pair of levels and local multiplayer right now. That brief look at a fat-head-tiny-body version of an action RPG was enough to leave a strong and delightfully strange impression.

The immediate highlight is the movement, and more specifically, the way each map incorporates slide physics into every fight. You can slide off inclines and, with enough momentum, soar high into the air while taking enemies with you or using your speed to give your sword a little extra punch. Most enemies in the demo are mindless little blue goblins that are easy enough to bat around and send flying with enough force, whether into explosive barrels, each other, or off the map into a bottomless abyss.

Of course, you are allowed to treat it like a buttoned-up dungeon crawler and just carve through enemies while blocking when they swing at you. It's a functional if slow playstyle. But even charging up your swing for a second or two gives you enough knockback to get silly, and both stages I played were festooned with slides, ramps, and half-pipes practically begging me to tinker on the fly.

In areas crawling with enemies there were also glowing spike walls and pools of water (insta-death for monsters) which naturally slot into a harebrained improvised fight plan just as likely to kill me as anyone I was fighting. In one level, a water spout was blocked by some wood; after cracking it open, the goblins below simply drowned and I smacked the rest into oblivion. The potential for Looney Tunes antics in 4-player co-op reminds me of the accident-prone multiplayer hits of early '10s Steam—games like Magicka, Alien Swarm, and Battleblock Theater.

That's not to say it's a stupid game. If anything Awaysis is a little brainier than the early levels of a standard ARPG, since you surrender control when sliding and sliding is such a crucial way to add knockback to your strikes. It's rewarding to think about your surroundings and use them to bash your enemies with, or at least get high enough for a suitably punishing ground pound. The standard difficulty had health bars a little too low for a good slide to really pop, but on hard mode the action was punchy and moreish.

It's a refreshing hook. I'm usually not thinking about the world around me in Diablo; it's essentially set dressing for a static labyrinth. Even in more interactive, systems-driven RPGs like Divinity or Baldur's Gate, I can't treat the environments like a platformer level and glide around like a greased-up penguin. Awaysis makes a toy of its world—much more than a gimmick, the physics are the whole meal here.

The demo is admittedly a little unpolished; the giant "Work In Progress" watermark in one corner makes it no secret. My camera glitched through the floor at one point, and some pop-in takes the glitz out of the otherwise beautiful environments. When these issues aren't in play the game's unique look slaps, reminding me a bit of Chrono Trigger or Dragon Quest if they were polymorphed into Nicktoons, a style Double Fine or Rare might have cooked up. It's pleasant!

A crucial slice of that vibe is the sound design, most notably Hip Tanaka's soundtrack. Tanaka worked on the music for EarthBound, Dr. Mario, and Metroid, and while this game doesn't stick to the chiptune stylings that made him famous, its songs are as chunky and funky as his best work. The fuzz bass, breakbeats, and bouncy synths suit the game's offbeat sensibilities to a T.

I'm itching to play more Awaysis. Its inviting zany exterior seems like veneer applied over something deceptively deep, and I'm curious to see how it feels to ski-fight against tougher enemies with spells, some weapon upgrades, and a few friends. Like many of my favorite games, its demo is fun-loving and freeform, prioritizing player expression over guided fights that feel prescriptive or narrow. We'll see later this year if the full game can reinforce this foundation with a meaty enough loot system to give each dungeon dive that extra lure.

You can find the Awaysis demo on Steam.