"They kidnapped his father. They destroyed his village. Now, he's the world’s only hope against an evil sorcerer – and not even time can stand in his way. Meet Tork – cave kid, shape-shifter, and time-travelling bone buster."
-Game description
Tork: Prehistoric Punk is a Platform Game developed in 2005 by Tiwak and published by Ubisoft.
The game stars Tork, a cave kid whose father Bargh is kidnapped by the evil sorcerer Orgus for his magical powers and taken through time. With the help of the enigmatic shaman Yok, Tork sets out to defeat Orgus and rescue his father, all the while fighting the sorcerer's minions from Prehistoric times, to the Middle Ages, all the way to the Modern Age.
The game was only ever released on Xbox and never saw a release outside North America.
Tropes:
- Arc Villain: Red Boran in the Prehistoric Age, the Necromancer in the Middle Age, and the Machinery Master in the Modern Age.
- Bait-and-Switch: The cutscene at the end of Death Realm has Tork finding the Necromancer's time stone at the top of his tower. However, the Necromancer himself is nowhere to be found, leading to Tork walking away with the stone without any problems. Then the game immediately transitions to the boss fight, where the Necromancer confronts Tork and Yok at Yok's hut after discovering that Tork stole the stone while he was away.
- Battle Boomerang:
- Tork's long range attack is him throwing his bolas at enemies with it somehow boomeranging right back to him. You can also charge it up and then throw it to do even more damage.
- Red Boran's weapon is a pair of boomerangs. He also carries boomerangs that explode a few seconds after being thrown.
- Battle in the Rain: The second phase of the fight against Red Boran takes place on a rock in the middle of a river while it is raining.
- Big Bad: Orgus.
- Big Boo's Haunt: Death Realm, where you traverse a graveyard full of ghosts and zombies, battle the Orc Brothers, and climb the Necromancer's tower to obtain his Time Stone. It is only accessible after obtaining the magic lantern from Infernal Machine.
- Big Good: Yok. He helps Tork to fight Orgus and his army while teaching him how to use his transformation powers.
- Big "NO!":
- Tork at the end of Besieged Castle when he fails to rescue Bargh from Orgus.
- The Necromancer in Necromancer when his giant shadow form is defeated.
- Orgus when he hears from the Machinery Master that Tork managed to defeat the Necromancer and took his time stone.
- Blazing Inferno Hellfire Sauce:
- The battle against the Chili Chief has him consume chili peppers and then breathing fire down on you from the balcony of his hut. You have to destroy every section of his hut while avoiding his fire breath in order to defeat him.
- The Sacred Pepper is used to give the thawed-out pterodactyl fire breath to use as ammunition against Red Boran in the first phase of his fight. You can either fire single shots or target multiple enemies and fire homing missiles.
- Bonus Stage: Obtaining a high enough total high score allows you access to bonus levels through the pad in front of Yok’s hut. They all revolve around defeating enemies and earning points until you die, which is then added to your total high score.
- Boss-Only Level:
- Red Boran, Necromancer, and Machinery Master, where you fight against the titular bosses in two/three phase fights.
- Infernal Machine, where you tail and fight the titular boss in order to retrieve the magic lantern.
- Orgus, where you fight the Big Bad himself who uses the flying saucer and a horde of golem-like monsters against you.
- Chest Monster: Double-Gas Statues, a type of Bad Statue that disguises itself as a Good Statue. When hit, it sprays poison gas that prevents you from attacking for a short time.
- Climax Boss:
- The defeat of Red Boran allows access to the Middle Age and the Armadillo transformation.
- The defeat of the Necromancer allows access to the Modern Age and the Squirrel transformation.
- The defeat of the Machinery Master reveals the fight to have been a distraction so that Orgus could steal the flying saucer from Yok while Tork was away.
- Co-Dragons: Orgus's three officers; Red Boran, the Necromancer, and the Machinery Master.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The time stones and Tork's transformations are represented by three colors. Blue for the Yeti and the stone found in the Prehistoric Age, green for the Armadillo and the stone found in the Middle Age, and red for the Squirrel and the stone found in the Modern Age.
- Darkest Hour: Orgus manages to steal the flying saucer from Yok while Tork is busy fighting the Machinery Master and then escapes back to the Prehistoric Age, stranding Tork and Yok in the Modern Age. That is, until Tork uses the Modern Age stone to create a portal to follow Orgus to where he went.
- Distressed Dude: Tork's father Bargh was kidnapped by Orgus for his great magical power, and Tork's motivation for going on his quest to rescue him.
- Elite Mook: In all ages there is a type of enemy who will take two to three hits and then start blocking you. These guys can hit hard and the only way to beat them is to either get behind them or wait for them to drop their guard.
- Evil Counterpart: The Bad Statues to the Good Statues, created by Orgus to serve as some of the many hazards Tork runs into while on his quest. They are also invulnerable to every type of attack except for Special Attacks.
- Fat Bastard: The Machinery Master is rather portly and is working for Orgus.
- Fetch Quest: The game partly consists of Tork going on several of these in order to face off against the main bosses in each age.
- Hot-Blooded:
- Tork is wild, impulsive, and hot-tempered, which often causes him to rush into danger without thinking.
- The Machinery Master is also rather temperamental and excitable.
- Human Aliens: Yok and Orgus are actually extraterrestrial beings who arrived on Earth from another time and planet to observe it using a special time-travelling flying saucer powered by the time stones. Orgus however decided to instead enslave humankind and captured Bargh when the latter and his tribe defied him.
- Jet Pack: The Machinery Master sports a bulky one almost as big as he is during the second phase of his fight. You have to destroy it in order to defeat him.
- Jungle Japes: Timber!, where you must cross a huge forest full of tribesmen and hostile wildlife to obtain the Sacred Chili Pepper guarded by the Chili Chief. You can only go there after obtaining the map from Grievous Gulch.
- Kid Hero: Tork.
- Laughably Evil: Red Boran’s gestures make him come off as this.
- Leeroy Jenkins: Upon first arriving in the Middle Age, Tork notices Bargh being held captive in the Besieged Castle. He rushes in despite Yok’s warnings, but gets there too late when Orgus teleports them away.
- Lethal Lava Land: Hot Foot, where you climb a volcano to obtain a lava stone to thaw out the frozen pterodactyl.
- Lightning Bruiser: The Squirrel transformation is the fastest of the three and is capable of dishing out huge damage. The Armadillo is this to a lesser extent.
- Locomotive Level: Train takes place aboard a moving train where you pass through a seemingly endless string of train cars to reach the parts needed to fix Catherine at the front.
- Macguffin: The time stones, which are in the possession of Orgus's commanders. Also the flying saucer.
- Made of Explodium:
- Bad Boom Statues, a type of Bad Statue that explodes when hit and Tork is in close proximity. It will remain unexploded if hit with a long range attack, but will explode instantly if hit with a charged attack.
- Red Boran uses explosive boomerangs alongside his regular ones, exploding seconds after being thrown.
- Metropolis Level: Town and Downtown, where in the former you traverse dangers in order to find Yok (who was knocked away from his hut by a moving girder), and in the latter you seek out a train driver's code ticket in order to operate Catherine.
- Mighty Glacier: The Yeti transformation is powerful, but also very slow-moving.
- Mini-Boss: The Chili Chief in the Prehistoric Age and the Infernal Machine and the Orc Brothers in the Middle Age.
- Missed Him by That Much: The end of Besieged Castle has Tork managing to make it to the place where Bargh is being held, only for Orgus to teleport away with him at the last second, much to Tork's anguish.
- My Future Self and Me: Town introduces Yek, Yok's future self who loans Tork his train Catherine in order to reach the Machinery Master, provided Tork can collect a few things first to help get it running.
- Never Bareheaded: Tork is never seen without his trademark hat off, nor is Bargh, Yok, Red Boran, the Necromancer, or Orgus.
- Never Found the Body: Orgus and the flying saucer are nowhere to be found after his defeat, with Orgus's staff seen sinking into the lava pit, implying it to have been his demise.
- Nuke 'em: Special Attacks, which are performed when shapeshifted and can defeat all enemies and destroy all statues on screen. You can find Special Attack orbs in Good Statues or by collecting fifty crystal shards.
- Oh, Crap!:
- The Necromancer lets out a deep, bellowing one when he returns to his tower to discover that Tork had broken in and stolen his time stone.
- Yok has one immediately after that when the Necromancer shows up at his hut looking to take the stone back.
- Old-School Dogfight: The first phase of the fight against Red Boran has Tork riding on top of the thawed pterodactyl and using its fire breath to shoot at the boss while avoiding obstacles along the way.
- One-Man Army: Tork is one caveboy going up against armies of cavemen, dinosaurs, orcs, undead, wizards, and robots, led by Orgus and his commanders.
- Punny Name: Red Boran = Red Baron.
- Schizo Tech:
- The Middle Age has the Infernal Machine, a war machine that has a variety of weapons like mechanical fists and flamethrowers and appears to have its own engine. Whether it is powered by the magic lantern or was built using technology from the Modern Age is unknown.
- The technology of the Modern Age appears to be some kind of hybrid of Steampunk and Cyberpunk, as you have hi-tech stuff like laser blades and robots but also primitive-looking planes and steam trains at the same time.
- Scoring Points: The game is built on a point system where you can defeat enemies, destroy objects, collect fruit, and survive without dying and/or with full health in order to obtain the highest score that you can, which is then added to your total high score for the whole game. Defeating several enemies in a row can also increase the number of points you earn, as well as Good Statues that offer temporary point multipliers when destroyed. Obtaining enough points allows access to bonus levels to further boost your total high score.
- Sequential Boss:
- Red Boran is first fought in the air in a prehistoric dogfight, then on the ground in the middle of a riverbed.
- You first fight monsters summoned through a portal created by the Necromancer, then his giant shadow, and finally the Necromancer himself.
- The first phase of the Machinery Master fight takes place in his lair, where you must destroy it to force him outside onto the rooftop to do battle with him.
- Shapeshifting / Super Mode: Filling your Fury meter to max capacity allows you to temporarily shapeshift into powerful animal forms that can perform Special Attacks, destroy golden Bonus Statues, and break down barricades that Tork normally cannot. You start out with the Yeti transformation, then you obtain the Armadillo transformation upon entering the Middle Age, and finally the Squirrel transformation upon entering the Modern Age. If you can find and assemble the three pieces of the talisman in each level, you can choose between any transformation you want the next time you choose to replay that level.
- Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Frost Bites, where you traverse an icy tundra to find a frozen pterodactyl guarded by the King Mammoth that when thawed will help you to reach Red Boran.
- Time Travel: The time stones guarded by Orgus’s commanders allow Tork and Yok to travel anywhere through time between the Prehistoric Age, the Middle Age, and the Modern Age. The flying saucer uses said stones to help Yok and Orgus travel through time, until Orgus stole them for world domination and then eventually stole the saucer too.
- Trapped in the Past: Or rather Trapped in the Future. After Orgus steals the flying saucer from Yok, the latter and Tork are left stranded in the Modern Age, as the saucer was used for travelling through time. Until Tork decides to break the Modern Age time stone to follow Orgus to where he went.
- Underestimating Badassery: It's likely that the reason the Necromancer left his time stone at the top of his tower unguarded was because he was confident that Tork would be unable to get past his defenses, much less gain access to the tower itself. The young hero proved him very, very wrong.
- Volcano Lair: The Machinery Master's lair.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Yok is never seen again or even mentioned after the final battle, making it unclear whether he is still stranded in the Modern Age or found some way back to the Prehistoric Age.
- The Worf Effect: The Yeti is a powerful early game transformation that can defeat enemies with ease, but will quickly lose much of its usefulness upon obtaining the Armadillo and Squirrel, who are much faster and can reach places that the Yeti cannot.
