Forced

Last updated
Forced
Forced game cover art.jpg
Developer(s) BetaDwarf
Publisher(s) BetaDwarf
Director(s) Steffen Kabbelgaard
Engine Unity
Platform(s) Microsoft Windows
OS X
Linux
PlayStation 4
Wii U
Xbox One
ReleaseOctober 24, 2013 (2013-10-24) [1]
Genre(s) Action role-playing
Mode(s) Single-player, co-op

Forced is a single-player and co-op action role-playing game developed by BetaDwarf, released in October 2013 for Windows, OS X and Linux through the Steam platform as well as Wii U. It is about gladiators fighting for their freedom in a fantasy arena where they are assisted by a spirit-like character called Balfus. Gameplay consists of selecting a weapon class and abilities to combat the various enemies of each arena, while solving puzzles using the help of Balfus. BetaDwarf was formed by a small group of students in 2011, who began developing the game in an unused classroom in Aalborg University – Copenhagen, Denmark. They were removed months later and launched a successful Kickstarter campaign involving an Imgur picture which documented their progress. Forced received moderate to favorable reviews with most critics praising its competitive gameplay and puzzle-system. The game's weak plot, technical glitches and excess difficulty were the negative highlights. It won the Intel Level Up 2013 award and BetaDwarf received the Danish Developer Of The Year (2013) for it.

Contents

Gameplay

Forced is an action role-playing game [2] having a top-down view for up to four players in the combat arena. Players have to select a weapon, which has 16 unlockable abilities each, similar to a character class. Though single player mode is also available, the game is mostly about cooperative gameplay by selecting a weapon class and abilities which complement the other players', while combating demons of various sizes and solving environmental puzzles—using a will-o-wisp-like companion called Balfus the Spirit Mentor. [3]

The Mark combat system and the interaction with Balfus are the special features in Forced. Here one player fights three enemies (image cropped and HUD not visible), with each hit giving them marks (in white, above their health bars). The player ordered Balfus (top-left) to move over the shrine nearby, causing him to have a green circular healing aura. Forced gameplay.jpeg
The Mark combat system and the interaction with Balfus are the special features in Forced. Here one player fights three enemies (image cropped and HUD not visible), with each hit giving them marks (in white, above their health bars). The player ordered Balfus (top-left) to move over the shrine nearby, causing him to have a green circular healing aura.

There are four weapon classes: the Storm Bow, the Volcanic Hammer, the Spirit Knives, and the Frost Shield; [4] each have the tactical roles of a long range attacker, slow melee attacker, fast melee attacker and a tank respectively. The active and passive abilities available for each class allow some form of customization. [2] The weapon class and selected abilities (which also have cooldowns) can be changed before the start of any arena level. Each player must choose a different weapon class. Balfus can be made to interact with the environment's spiritual plane by ordering him to activate or trigger props like healing pedestals or set off a stunning blast from traps. [3] [5] He can travel with the characters, float in space or can be called to their location. [6] Good positioning and communication will help the players use Balfus efficiently; the need to do this while facing waves of enemies, makes the game more challenging. [2]

Gems are rewarded after the completion of each arena trial. They can be used to enhance the weapons by unlocking more ability slots and new abilities at regular intervals. Each trial contains three gems as a reward. The first requires completion, the second is a specific challenge and the third is a time trial. If the arena boss is too difficult, it is possible to complete all these challenges to earn extra gems. Forced has a Mark Combat System, [7] where weapons cause marks on the enemies. A greater number of marks causes certain abilities to have better effects, thus making it more effective to hit a group of enemies a few times before using an ability, rather than using it at the start. Though the difficulty increases in proportion to the number of players and sharing Balfus needs communication between them, multiplayer is easier and lets the player focus on specific abilities and tactical roles instead of being forced to cover every possibility in single player; also, if a player dies, the trial can be completed as long as another survives till the end. [5]

Plot

The players are cast as slaves who are forced to fight in a fantasy gladiator arena, which is the reason for the game title. [3] The slaves are from a village where people are bred solely to be gladiators and fight for the pleasure of demon types to win their freedom. The players have the help of Balfus, a Spirit Mentor, and need to overcome the challenges and defeat the guardians of each arena. Spirit Mentors guide gladiators through the arena and Balfus is revealed to have done so for previous dead gladiators before the player. Balfus remains the source of drama since the protagonists are silent throughout the game and the antagonists do not go beyond taunting them. [5]

In their first arena fight, they defeat the guardian called "Wrathhoof", who refuses to accept defeat to let them pass to the next arena. Despite Balfus' warning that this would be against the rules, Wrathhoof continues to attack the players who then kill him. The players and Balfus try to keep this murder of a guardian a secret and embark to the next arena, where the next guardian Slarth, discovers what they did. Slarth and the next guardian Graw are revealed to be former gladiators themselves and Balfus, their mentor. The players then defeat and kill Slarth. On killing Graw, Balfus decides to end this gladiator event by killing the remaining guardian Mordar and the final guardian called "The Master".

Development

Forced uses the Unity engine. [8] BetaDwarf was formed by a small group of students in 2010, who moved into an unused classroom in Aalborg University – Copenhagen, Denmark and began developing the game. After seven months, the university discovered them when a lecturer accidentally walked into the room. [8] They were removed and made a successful Kickstarter campaign involving a picture on Imgur, which described their progress as a team; they were then able to set up their office in Copenhagen. [8] [9] Steffen Kabbelgaard, Game Director and CEO of BetaDwarf, credited the 1996 videogame Crash Bandicoot as an inspiration for the campaigns and gem rewards in Forced. [8] A demo of the game was available in the 2013 Gamescom and PAX Prime. [7] A beta version of Forced was initially released on Steam Early Access for Windows, OS X and Linux in the same year. Its full release was on October 24, 2013 which was also for Wii U. [2] On March 19, 2014, BetaDwarf announced that the game would be available on Xbox One. [10]

Reception

Forced won the Intel Level Up 2013 award and BetaDwarf received the Danish Developer Of The Year at the 2013 Spilprisen game awards held by the Danish Producers Association. [7] [15] It received moderate to favorable reviews. Brittany Vincent of Hardcore Gamer gave the game a 4/5, calling it "a gleeful return to form for cooperative play." [4] Jim Rossignol from Rock, Paper, Shotgun called it a "competently produced game" but said that it "simply lacks flair, and combined with the slightly awkward mechanics in co-op play, means it never feels wholly convincing." [3] Lena LeRay from IndieGames.com felt the voice acting was mediocre and acknowledged the lack of depth in the plot but said that the "engaging gameplay" compensated for it. [2] Bob Richardson from RPGFan also highlighted these issues in addition to various technical glitches in multiplayer. [6] Richardson praised the gameplay, the puzzle system and the skill customization, giving the game 80% rating. [6] He said, "Forced is purely an intrinsic experience: defeat is the result of lack of cooperation and skill, and victory is directly related to teamwork, communication, and aptitude." [6]

Zach Welhouse from RPGamer gave it a 3/5 calling the combat "complex and rewarding" and multiplayer "a good balance of tactics and adrenaline." [5] He also praised the music, Balfus's character and called the puzzle-solving system "unique" but noted the bare plot and game difficulty as its negative highlights. [5] Welhouse commented, "The sheer number of ways to die makes it difficult to tell how much of Forced is unfair and how much is a series of lessons in avoiding dangerous situations to unlock a new ability is a compelling system for squeezing the most effort out of a player." [5] Jason Venter from GameSpot, gave it 5/10 and said, "It's a challenging game with built-in reasons to revisit familiar areas, but it's also too demanding for its own good, and the results are more frustrating than satisfying." [13] Mike Gunn from NZGamer.com gave it 8.6/10 and said, "Such a simple game, but one with a lot of tactical and strategic depth." [14]

Related Research Articles

<i>Ratchet: Deadlocked</i> 2005 action platform game

Ratchet: Deadlocked is a 2005 third-person shooter platformer, developed by Insomniac Games and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 2 as the fourth installment of the Ratchet & Clank series.

<i>The Secret World</i> 2012 video game

The Secret World is a massively multiplayer online role-playing video game with a dark urban fantasy theme, in which players play characters defending the world from occult threats.

The fighter is one of the standard playable character classes in the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. A fighter is a versatile, weapons-oriented warrior who fights using skill, strategy and tactics.

<i>God of War: Betrayal</i> 2007 video game

God of War: Betrayal is an action-adventure mobile game developed by Javaground and Sony Online Entertainment's (SOE) Los Angeles division, and published by Sony Pictures Digital. Released for mobile phones supporting the Java Platform, Micro Edition on June 20, 2007, it is the third installment in the God of War series, and the fifth chronologically. Loosely based on Greek mythology, Betrayal is set in ancient Greece with vengeance as its central motif. The player controls the protagonist Kratos, who became the new God of War after killing the former, Ares. Kratos is framed for the murder of Argos and pursues the true assassin across Greece, resulting in a confrontation with Olympian messenger Ceryx.

<i>Rage of the Gladiator</i> 2010 video game

Rage of the Gladiator is a WiiWare, 3DS, iOS, and Android game. It is the second WiiWare game to use the Wii MotionPlus. The gameplay is similar to the gameplay of Punch-Out.

<i>Puzzle Quest 2</i> 2010 video game

Puzzle Quest 2 is a video game developed by Infinite Interactive for the Nintendo DS, Xbox Live Arcade, iOS, Android, Windows Phone 7, and Microsoft Windows. It was released on June 22, 2010 by D3 Publisher. A version for the PlayStation Portable was in development, but was cancelled due to sound bugs. It is the sequel to Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords, and like its predecessor, it combines role-playing with strategy and puzzle elements. It uses a competitive, Bejeweled-style, "match three game" playfield to simulate combat and other activities common to role-playing games.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Boomzap Entertainment</span> Video game developer

Boomzap Entertainment is a casual games developer registered in Singapore with a virtual office environment. It was formed in 2005 and has released 50 games to date that are ported on various platforms. Boomzap has developed for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Nintendo DS, Wii, iOS, and Android. Its games are available on games portals such as Big Fish Games, Yahoo!, WildTangent, GameHouse, Google Play, Amazon, iTunes, Steam and others.

<i>Battle of the Immortals</i> 2010 video game

Battle of the Immortals was a free-to-play massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) by Perfect World Entertainment. Beta began on April 14, 2010, and is open to all users with a Perfect World account. On April 30, 2010, the closed beta ended and the open beta began on May 4, 2010. The Guardians of Fate was released on February 22, 2012. Battle of the Immortals takes place in Western Europe, where the player takes the role of a hero to help revive Odin. Besides, Battle of the Immortals is published by Joygame in Turkey since July, 2012. The closed Beta started on September 18, ended on October 11. The open beta which started on October 25 is still on. The game closed all its servers on January 8, 2018.

<i>The Tales of Bearsworth Manor</i> 2010 video game

The Tales of Bearsworth Manor, or Kumanage in Japanese, is a 2010 video game developed and published by Square Enix and released for the Wii's WiiWare service. The game was released in two parts: Tales of Bearsworth Manor: Puzzling Pages, and Tales of Bearsworth Manor: Chaotic Conflicts. Both games are set in a picture book held by a ghost in the haunted Bearsworth Manor, and have the player use the Wiimote controller to toss paper bears onto the book's 3D landscape. Chaotic Conflicts is a tower defense game, where the paper bears defend blue gems from enemy BadBears, while Puzzling Pages is a puzzle game where the bears collect red candies. Both game versions received poor reviews; critics felt that the games were amusing and creative, but found the controls terrible.

<i>Tangled: The Video Game</i> 2010 video game

Tangled: The Video Game is an action-adventure game based on the film of the same name for the Wii and Nintendo DS, as well as for Microsoft Windows. The game was developed by Planet Moon Studios and published by Disney Interactive Studios, and was released in November 2010.

<i>Silent Hill: Book of Memories</i> 2012 dungeon crawler video game

Silent Hill: Book of Memories is a 2012 dungeon crawler video game developed by WayForward Technologies and published by Konami. Released for the PlayStation Vita, it is a spin-off of the Silent Hill video game series. It features a player-created protagonist who receives the titular book on their birthday, which contains their entire life story, and makes changes to it with unforeseen and often unfavorable consequences. Book of Memories features gameplay elements from role-playing games: as the player character traverses the dungeons and defeats monsters there, they gain experience points and thus improve their respective abilities. The character progresses from each themed level by collecting pieces of a puzzle and then solving the puzzle. Five endings are available based on the character's alignment; the sixth is a joke ending in the tradition of previous Silent Hill games.

<i>Chivalry: Medieval Warfare</i> 2012 video game

Chivalry: Medieval Warfare is a multiplayer-focused hack and slash developed by Torn Banner Studios as their first commercial title. The game is set in a fictional setting. On September 20, 2012, a trailer was released which set the release date to October 16, 2012. The developers had confirmed that the game would be PC exclusive initially, but in October 2014, they confirmed that the game would be coming to PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in December 2014. A standalone expansion pack called Chivalry: Deadliest Warrior was announced on August 23, 2013, as a tie-in for the television series Deadliest Warrior. It was released on November 14, 2013.

<i>Shadowrun Returns</i> 2013 video game

Shadowrun Returns is a tactical role-playing game developed and published by Harebrained Schemes. It takes place in the science fantasy setting of the Shadowrun tabletop role-playing game. The game was crowd funded through Kickstarter and released for Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux, iOS, and Android in 2013.

<i>The Wonderful 101</i> 2013 video game

The Wonderful 101 is an action-adventure game developed by PlatinumGames and published by Nintendo for the Wii U. The game was directed by Hideki Kamiya and produced by Atsushi Inaba. It was released in August 2013 in all major regions except North America, where it released the following month. The Wonderful 101 received generally positive reviews. It failed to meet sales expectations.

<i>Massive Chalice</i> 2015 video game

Massive Chalice is a turn-based tactics video game for Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux and Xbox One by Double Fine Productions, which was funded through Kickstarter. The project leader of the game was Brad Muir, who was previously the project leader of Iron Brigade.

<i>Dawngate</i> Video game

Dawngate was a multiplayer online battle arena video game developed by Waystone Games and published by Electronic Arts for Microsoft Windows. It was meant to be a free-to-play game likely to be supported by micro-transactions. News about the game began to leak during early-mid April 2013 with few details on mechanics, gameplay, or other elements. Testing period began on May 24, 2013, and the community beta was released on April 9, 2014. The open beta was released on May 19, 2014; on November 4, 2014, it was announced that because the beta was not shaping up as they had hoped, all development would stop and the game would be fully shut down in 90 days. In 2015, it became a registered trademark of EA. In June 2020 a development team of fans reached out to EA in a means to acquire the rights to the name to release their fan remake as "Dawngate". A Kickstarter has been set up as a means of gathering part of the funds required to obtain the rights and bring it back to life. Despite successfully raising the sought after funds, the project was abandoned when the cost to acquire the IP was determined to be prohibitively high.

<i>99 Spirits</i> 2012 video game

99 Spirits is a puzzle role-playing video game developed and published in Japan by TORaIKI in July 2012 for Microsoft Windows. It was localized and published in English by Fruitbat Factory on May 31, 2013 after a successful crowdfunding campaign. Two pieces of downloadable content, featuring side-stories presented in a visual novel format, were released in 2014 and 2015.

<i>Road Redemption</i> 2017 video game

Road Redemption is a vehicular combat racing video game developed by EQ-Games and Pixel Dash Studios. The game is a spiritual successor to the Road Rash series and was released for Windows PC on October 4, 2017. Console versions of Road Redemption were released on November 6, 2018 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. A mobile version of Road Redemption were released on September 28, 2022 for Android and iOS.

BetaDwarf is a Danish independent video game developer based in Copenhagen, Denmark, founded in 2010. The company was formed by a small group of students in 2010, who moved into an unused classroom in Aalborg University – Copenhagen, Denmark and began developing their first game, Forced. Since, they have left the classroom and released a second game, Forced: Showdown.

<i>Forced: Showdown</i> 2016 action role-playing video game

Forced: Showdown is a top-down single-player bullet-hell brawler developed by Danish indie game developer BetaDwarf. The game was released in March 2016 for Windows, OS X and Linux through Steam as well as GOG.com. The game revolves around Contestants fighting for wealth and glory in an ever-changing galactic game show. The gameplay mixes roguelike aspects with a trading-card game. It consists of selecting a champion, enhancing and empowering him and his abilities to battle through hordes of minions and dodging their attacks to survive.

References

  1. ↑ "FORCED: Slightly Better Edition on Steam". Store.steampowered.com. 2013-10-24. Retrieved 2016-09-20.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 LeRay, Lena (October 3, 2013). "Forced forces mighty fine co-op play". IndieGames.com. Archived from the original on 2013-10-07. Retrieved 2014-06-24.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Rossignol, Jim (November 1, 2013). "Wot I Think: Forced". Rock Paper Shotgun . Retrieved 2014-06-22.
  4. 1 2 3 Vincent, Brittany (September 11, 2013). "Review: Forced". Hardcore Gamer. Hardcore Gamer. Retrieved 2013-11-25.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Welhouse, Zach. "FORCED - Staff Review". RPGamer. Archived from the original on 2014-02-09. Retrieved 2014-06-23.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 Richardson, Bob (September 18, 2013). "Forced". RPGFan. Archived from the original on 2014-02-09. Retrieved 2014-06-25.
  7. 1 2 3 "Award-winning Indie Forced Headed to Gamescom, PAX Prime". Gamasutra. August 15, 2013. Retrieved 2014-06-23.
  8. 1 2 3 4 Whitehead, Thomas (October 19, 2013). "Interview: BetaDwarf On Humble Beginnings, Bringing FORCED to the Wii U eShop and Working with Nintendo". Nintendo Life. Archived from the original on 2014-04-04. Retrieved 2014-06-25.
  9. ↑ Forced Out, But Forging Ahead – The Incredible Story of BetaDwarf, retrieved from GameFront, October 4, 2013
  10. ↑ "The gladiators of action-RPG sleeper hit, FORCED, are coming to Xbox One!". MCV. March 19, 2014. Retrieved 2014-06-28.
  11. ↑ "FORCED for PC". GameRankings.com. Retrieved 2014-06-25.
  12. ↑ "Forced for PC". Metacritic . Retrieved 2015-02-24.
  13. 1 2 Venter, Jason (October 31, 2013). "A missed connection". Gamespot. Retrieved 2014-06-28.
  14. 1 2 Gunn, Mike (November 11, 2013). "Forced". NZGamer.com. Archived from the original on 2014-04-03. Retrieved 2014-06-28.
  15. ↑ "Region Specific profile: BetaDwarf". Edge. August 4, 2013. Retrieved 2014-06-30.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.