Every now and then I wonder about the statistically established average age of a Gamer – what is it now, 36, 37? Please, let’s keep it under 40 – and I realize with dismay that, by extrapolation, many of the people reading this probably have children. Oh, children! Excuse me, I must stand on a chair, clutching a broom. I’ve never understood this fad of creating smaller versions of yourself. It’s one of those weirder subcultures that you read about in the papers but rarely see in real life.
I do understand the appeal of same-screen co-op games like Run From Mummies, though – which, as a bloodless, comedic dungeon crawler, seems like a fair choice for those burdened by cacophonous auto-spawns. Don’t worry, the “mummies” in the title are just regular elderly disembowelled corpses wrapped in rags, not those sinister, unembalmed “mothers” you’ve heard about in the grocery store.
Run From Mummies is an archaeology game in the same way that Whack-A-Mole is a mole game. You and up to three friends are tourists trapped in a giant pyramid full of wandering undead, spike traps, and laser-beaming statue bosses. Your only weapon is your camera—you can stun the inhospitable relics and tinker with other objects with your flash, which is probably a useful metaphor for the impact of tourism on archaeological sites in general. Taking a photo, however, means standing still while an AOE triangle stretches out from your feet, so try not to do that while you’re running away from a rolling boulder.
A demo version of Run From Mummies is available on Steam. The full game spans seven regions connected by hand-drawn cutscenes that have a reasonable Two Point energy. There are apparently “secrets” and “knowledge” to be discovered, but while I can accept exploring the layouts of sliding walls, I’m not sure the point of such a game is to delve into the code. It reminds me a bit of the classic Power Stone game from the Sega Dreamcast, except that it’s top-down and 2D. Half the fun is undoubtedly getting in each other’s way.
Too cartoony for your taste? I can only assume you have older children, ages ten to twenty, “teenagers” if you will, who think 2D is totally uncool, mom. Maybe they’ll be happier with the fresh Indiana Jones game. It’s fully 3D, boasting the best polygons Microsoft’s money can coax out of whatever brains programmers have stashed away in their basements. It also has a photography engine that’s all about taking pictures of things, not about triggering attacks from hungry skeletons. A bit crazy, but let’s see what happens.
