Alt+Escape: Corpse Craft

Welcome to Alt+Escape, our weekly pick of browser-based games to help you start your weekend a little early. Check back each Friday for a new game!

Corpse Craft

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Ah, Eygor Weardd’s School for Responsible Reanimation. Quite the prestigious alma mater, I hear. The few students lucky enough to be admitted to the prestigious academy study under Weardd himself, learning the tricks of the trade to bring long-dead corpses to life. Or at least… it was, until it burned to the ground, killing the renowned Weardd. Jack, one of the most talented students, suspects nemesis Ralph of arson, and so they begin the battle for dominance over the schoolyard – with their nefarious creations.

Corpse Craft is a mixture of puzzle game and strategy. Jack has four different resources at his disposal – Blood, Flesh, Stitches, and Energy. Matching three or more of the same resource adds to his pool, and it costs different amounts of different resources to bring a shambling corpse to life. Street Walkers are your basic attackers, Handimen defend, dog-human Delivery Boys take out groups, and Ladyfingers grab powerups from the field. It’s a Rock-Paper-Scissors situation (Handimen > Delivery Boys > Street Walkers > Handimen), and fairly well balanced.

Still, fun gameplay or not, perhaps the most appealing thing about the game is its delightfully macabre sense of style. It’s very reminiscent of the works of American writer and illustrator Edward Gorey, particularly in the rhyming limericks the game uses to advance the plot before each level.

There’s only one catch – technically, this is just a demo, and the full version costs a dollar to unlock. On the other hand, you still get eight levels of corpse-tastic mayhem for free, and that’ll be more than enough to waste part of your Friday afternoon.