Cloud Strife’s Buster sword doesn’t have anything on this giant weapon

Big swords have long played the role of iconic weapons in RPGs and anime series. Swordcery, an action game from Temple Door Games, dares to ask the question: What if we made big RPG swords even bigger?

We have big-ass swords and more in Cool WIP, Polygon’s weekly roundup of eye-catching clips and screenshots of works in progress. Each week, the Polygon staff scours the internet for the most interesting games still under construction, to give you a sampler of the coolest up-and-coming projects.

This week we’re featuring a game that redefines “run and gun,” a colorful toy box of a first-person shooter, an alligator cowboy (yeehaw), and a fever dream of a monster.

What if Cloud Strife’s sword, but bigger?

Swordcery is a rogue-like action game in which you collect spell-infused swords to fight off swarms of baddies. It’s a simple concept, but the swords are enough to make Cloud Strife jealous. In a clip posted by the studio, we can see one of the game’s characters wielding a comically large sword that is several times bigger than the character themselves, and even larger than some of the trees in the forest. There’s no release date on the the game yet, but you can check out weekly updates on the developer’s Discord.

This slow-motion action is right out of Neo’s playbook

Described by its developer Rootpilot as a “zoomer shooter,” this game looks like it combines the action of your typical endless runner game with slow-motion action sequences. The developer posted a clip showing one of its characters dashing along, only to do a full flip and blow the head off an enemy with a shotgun in mid-air. The action scene is the stuff of The Matrix, and it looks sick. Rootpilot posts regularly about the game, so you can see other clips of development on Twitter.

First-person shooter gets a toy-like look

Seven Leaf Clover’s Payloaders Strike! looks like it takes the action from a first-person shooter like Overwatch or Valorant and puts it into a toy-like world. The game has a playful, colorful theme paired with a cartoony style where you play as a robot rising up against the powers that be. According to its description, you’ll play through challenges to “put an end to the corporate tyranny.” You can download a demo and check out more information on the game’s Itch.io page here

The little cowboy is ready for adventure (the cowboy’s an alligator)

We’ve covered Lil Gator Game before, but I couldn’t resist revisiting it, now that we get to see the gator as a rootin’ tootin’ cowboy. A new clip from developer Playtonic showed off not just a fun cowboy hat but some gameplay in the world. It looks like there’s a lot to do, and in this clip, we can watch the gator sliding down a mountain and smashing various signs to pieces. There’s no release date yet, but the Steam page says it’ll come out sometime later this year.

All the work it takes to make one wobbly guy

FeverDevJohnny is a developer working on whimsical and strange video games. The developer maintains a Patreon that supports a variety of projects, and recently Johnny posted a clip of a pointy-teethed character’s face from one game. In the clip, the cursor drags the face around, and the eyes, nose, and teeth wobble and bounce. According to a tweet from the developer, it took “100 lines of code” to make the face wobble like that. It’s a cool concept, and it’s also just a fun way to reveal some of the work it takes to create a game element like that. For more strange creations, you can check out FeverDecJohnny’s Twitter account.