Djinni & Thaco: Trial By Spire

Djinni & Thaco: Trial By Spire is a first person Virtual Reality (VR) strategy game developed and published by Dark Catt Studios Interactive on August 4th, 2020.

In the debut game from Dark Catt Studios, players take on the role of a Djinni to help a wizard named Thaco dethrone the current king of the kingdom, King Crambone. The Djinni has been trapped in a void and Thaco helps them escape in order to aid him in his quest. Throughout the game, the Djinni faces off against Crambone’s troops, ranging from knights to elves to pixies and more, to stop them from getting to Djinni and Thaco’s base of operations, the Spire.

The player’s arsenal includes defensive towers as well as spells performed using motion and gesture controls.

Towers available to the player include single target and area of effect towers that attack enemies, towers that slow enemies, and mage towers that give the players additional spells and increase the power of spells. Single target towers can be upgraded three times to maximize destruction. Mage towers can be upgraded as much as the player wants if they have the resources to do it.

Spells that the player can unlock and use include Slam, Vesper Beam, Lightning, and Sands of Time. The Slam spell lets players hit the ground near their enemies to do damage. The Vesper Beam spell allows the player to shoot beams of fiery energy from their fingertips. With the Lightning spell, players can strike multiple enemies with bolts of lightning from the sky. The Sands of Time spell can be used to slow down enemies in an area for a short period of time. All of these can be upgraded via the mage towers.

The three resources the player will balance are Souls, Spire Health, and Mana. Souls are earned from defeating enemies and can be used to heal Spire Health or build and upgrade towers. Mana is used when a spell is cast and regenerates over time.

The game features a special guest appearance by film legend Lloyd Kaufman of Troma Entertainment (most known for “The Toxic Avenger”), Monty Python-esque humor, and a pair of rowdy announcers named Burton “The Duke” Archibald and Wolf Hawkins. Duke and Wolf are based off of pro-wrestling announcers such as Jim Ross and the announcers from the movie “Dodgeball,” and are uniquely animated with behavior trees to give players play-by-play commentary throughout the game that have their own behavior tree system in the code ( the announcer behavior is triggered by in-game performance).

In addition to the standard Story Mode, players can unlock two additional modes in Djinni & Thaco: Trial By Spire, Magic Only and Iron Man. Magic Only restricts the player to only using spellcasting throughout the game. Iron Man mode is a challenging variant where the player only has 1 health for the Spire, meaning the player cannot let a single enemy get to the Spire.