Volgarr The Viking

Volgarr the Viking is an action platformer video game.

In Volgarr the Viking, the player controls the titular character, who has been charged by Odin with a quest to defeat an evil dragon.

Volgarr is armed with a sword, a spear and a wooden shield at the start.

Along with hitting enemies at range, the spear can also be used to create temporary platforms.

Treasure chests located throughout the level will contain power-ups that will grant Volgarr new abilities and, most importantly, enable him to take more damage.

In his initial state, Volgarr can sustain a single unblocked hit at the cost of his shield, and a second hit will force the player to return to the last checkpoint, either the beginning of the level or the midpoint of the level.

The player has an unlimited number of chances to complete the main levels.

Enemies drop coins and jewels when defeated, which the player can collect.

If Volgarr is defeated, he will lose a portion of those coins. Only coins in hand when Volgarr completes a level are kept permanently. Levels can be replayed for additional coins and for faster completion times.

By completing a level without losing a life, the player can obtain special key items that unlock additional bonus levels, which ultimately lead to the game's best-possible ending.

Crazy Viking Studios is based in Bothell, Washington and was founded by Kris Durrschmidt and Taron Millet, an artist and a programmer that left their former studio, Griptonite Games, after it was bought out by Glu Mobile, due to their distaste for the freemium mobile business model.

Before leaving Griptonite they had held key roles in some of the studio's more well-known titles such as Shinobi 3D for the Nintendo 3DS, Assassin's Creed II: Discovery for the Nintendo DS, Spider-Man: Web of Shadows for the Nintendo DS, and The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night for the Game Boy Advance.

In July 2012, the studio launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund Volgarr the Viking, a game they based around simple controls, high challenge, and meticulous design.

The game reached its US$18,000 funding goal within one week, and concluded the campaign with just under $40,000. By then the game's development was already underway, with Taron as the game's designer and programmer.

Volgarr the Viking received positive reviews from critics upon its release. On review-aggregating website Metacritic, the PC and Xbox One versions of the game have scores of 76 and 7, respectively.

On Metacritic's game-focused sister site, GameRankings, the games have scores of 78.33% and 81%, respectively.

In his review of the game for GameCritics.com, critic Daniel Weissenberger observed the game's similarity to the 1987 Taito video game Rastan, both in general mechanics and also level design, noting that Volgarr's first level was a re-creation of the first level of Rastan, including the skeletal remains of the earlier game's protagonist.

Although Weissenberger did not give a numeric score for his review, he did call the game "an amazing accomplishment" and said that Crazy Viking had taken the skeleton of a classic title and transformed it into the greatest game the 80s never produced.

Dan Whitehead of Eurogamer described the game design as more Ghosts N Goblins or Rastan than Golden Axe, but there's also a heaping helping of the Bitmap Brothers classic Gods in the mix, along with Rafaelle Cecco's Stormlord.