Chalking things up with Dokuro

Can a representative of the undead ever find love and gain the affection of a radiant human princess in a gothic setting? That's the question Game Arts and GungHo poses in its upcoming 2D puzzle-laden platformer, Dokuro.

You play the title character, a diminutive undead skeleton, who has to lead a princess captured by the Dark Lord to her freedom. Players will need to go through the different sections of the impossibly-large castle, as they tax their brains with all sorts of puzzles.

Luckily, the skeleton has a few tricks of his own to guide the princess from point A to B. You can make the skeleton double-jump to reach high places, and move like the wind to trigger switches. He also has a club he can use to stun and knock enemies away, but doesn't hurt them in the slightest.

The puzzles we saw involved moving targets In one stage, we needed to light up a powder keg by using a nearby fire demon. Because it was jumping around, we had to time our swing so that it landed close to the keg.

The skeleton needs more than just a calcium-crafted club for defense; that's where the hero form comes into play. With either a double-tap on the front or rear touchpad, Dokuro transforms into a prince that can not only slash enemies to their deaths, but also carry the princess to bypass small ledges or other manageable obstacles. The potion meter on the right side of the screen displays how long you've got until you revert back to your bony form.

In addition, you have access with chalk powers; by selecting the color type of chalk with the left trigger, you can draw lines on the touch screen to alter the environment. Using a white chalk line connects severed ropes onto heavy objects so that they stay suspended, while using a red chalk lets you light up fuses to blow up powder kegs.

Someday my prince will come…

We played through five stages in our demo, with each stage consisting of ten segments and its own brain teasers. While the first stage was a tutorial about the game's controls and mechanics, we ran into a bit of trouble with some of the puzzles on the third stage and beyond. Some require you to lay out a makeshift bridge of boxes while clearing a path of beasties, while others required us to fly across the area using a blimp while capping off fire traps using crates.