The Wii U is the home of many crazy party games, as evidenced by the showing from developers at this year’s PAX East. We’ve already told you about Runbow, which you can see in action here and read Steve’s impressions of here. Directly across the narrow path of the PAX East floor was Toto Temple Deluxe, a four-player, local-only, “king of the hill”-style game from Juicy Beast that had convention goers hollering at and laughing with strangers, and could potentially be a staple of our party game collections later this year.
Toto Temple Deluxe pits four players against each other in a 2D battle arena as short humanoids with stone tablets for heads. There are two main game modes that were shown off at PAX East. The rules of Classic mode are simple, but strange: in the middle of the arena sits a goat, and players must fight to grab the goat and keep it on their heads for as long as possible. By holding the goat, you accumulate points, and the first to reach 3,000 points wins the round. You can also pick up additional items around the stage to build your score. Opponents use a dash attack to knock the goat off of each other’s heads, while the goat carrier uses the same button to shield against attacks. It’s a mad dash to reach the score, and these stone men will fly all over the screen to get the goat, all while the people behind the controllers scream and laugh at each other in a wildly fun time.
The second mode featured in the Toto Temple Deluxe demo was a showdown between the winner of the one round of Classic Mode and a high-level bot. In the final version, this mode will be known as Bomb Mode, and it will be expanded to four-player, as well as teams. In this mode, the goat is, you guessed it, a bomb (but still a goat, just a bomb goat). By picking up the bomb, a timer is started for detonation, and a blast radius appears around the bomb carrier. To win the round, you must catch your opponents in the blast radius at the moment the bomb goes off (in our demo, this had to be done twice). Opponents can dash attack the bomb carrier and steal the bomb, which will reset the timer and allow them the chance to win. Each time the bomb explodes without catching an opponent in the radius, the next time it is picked up, the radius is larger. Watching the bomb goat grow closer and closer to detonation is tense, and you feel the frustration for those playing when they either narrowly miss catching their opponents in the blast, or are the ones who are successfully blasted.
The booth for Toto Temple Deluxe was full of spectators throughout PAX East, and was constantly one of the rowdiest booths at the entire convention. It was an intense competition between the players, and the crowd behind them was as invested as they were in the action on the screen. Showdowns were particularly hectic and drew big responses from the crowd. This looks to be a great party game, with simple controls and quick rounds that will allow everyone to compete and enough craziness to heighten the excitement in your living room. I was instantly excited to show this game to my friends, as I know how much fun Toto Temple Deluxe can be in a group after watching a large group of strangers live and die together with each exploding goat.
Toto Temple Deluxe will release in Summer 2015 on the Wii U eShop for $9.99. Check out our video coverage of Toto Temple Deluxe from the PAX East booth, and check back on NintendoFuse for any updates we get from now until launch.