The hills are alive with The Sound of Fury, a fantasy musical hack 'n' slash about weaponising pianos to fight the Devil

Clef incarnate

My firstest-ever Golden Joystick Awards, which took place last night in London, was marred somewhat by 1) a gin & tonic costing eleven quid and 2) my view of the stage being directly obscured by its own rigging. Nonetheless, I did crane enough to get a good view at the reveal of The Sound of Fury, a musically-minded hack 'n' slash in which a troubled classical musician descends into Hell to save a friend from the Devil.

It's not out until late 2027, and the strength of its monster-battering will of course lay in how it feels in the hand. I like the look of this one, though. While it doesn't appear to be a full-on rhythm action game in the Hi-Fi Rush or Dead as Disco vein, it's clearly trying incorporate our glum hero's virtuosity with both visual and thematic flair: spinning attacks are accentuated by trails of sheet music staves, and at least one move inflicts enemies with uncontrollable bouts of dancing. Weapons also take the form of instruments, the trailer being particularly keen to show grand pianos being powerbombed into demon heads. "You dropped your... keys," I will say, to the demons. Heh heh heh.

Also of note is The Sound of Fury's unusual interpretation of Hell, which rather than the usual Biblical/Nordic/Ancient Greek depictions we get in games, is a washed-out mashup of what the Steam page calls "humanity's darkest chapters." Thus, you fight not red-skinned horned imps but gasmasked soldiers and Klu Klux Klansmen, with history-spanning anomalies distorting an otherwise 19th century-flavoured fantasyscape. The laws of time evidently aren't followed here, not least when the protag whips out a Flying V guitar to give the Grim Reaper a different kind of axe wound.

I can't find much else out about developers and self-publishers Games By Wojtek, with that pluralisation assuming 'they' aren't just one person named Wojtek, but The Sound of Fury looks to be his/their debut game. Hopefully it gets a demo, in due course, so we can try tickling its ivories ourselves.