AUG 05, 2024

Souls-like, Dieselpunk, Pixel-art

<aside> 📒 A well-polished action game, with great design, environmental storytelling, and polished pixel-art. Plagued with souls-like difficulty spikes and gimmicky puzzle-battles.

</aside>

Overall

• The game design and level design are very cool
  • Well-polished locations, with interesting environmental storytelling
• Great vibe: COVID + the war – in a cool Sumerian necrocyberpunk aesthetic
• the guns feel very nice, from aiming to reloading to taking enemies down.
  • I didn't like the shotguns, though. Losing an automatic rifle to a two-shot nonsense felt like a downgrade
  • Grenades are also great, but aiming sucks. That’s due fact you throw in the direction the character is facing AND you turn around with the right stick (and throw with the d-pad, using the same right thumb)
• some check-points are a bit too spread apart
  • one is placed near two pickables, so you need to re-pick them up every time
  • this also might help with solving lengthy boss battles
• It has two lengthy boss battles: at the end of the first location and the last. Wouldn’t say I enjoyed either – although I’m generally not a fan of staged boss battles, when you need to memorize moves or prove your skill.
  • Do you get invulnerability after being knocked down? If so, it should be extended
• Story: the game has laconic storytelling with an occasional blurb of text from a note and some “narration” on the loading screens between locations. There are some lore bits on loading screens after deaths.

Suggestions

The game seems pretty self-sufficient with its writing and storytelling. But for the sake of exercise, here’s some ideas.

Narrative Design Analysis

As the story stands, the protagonist wakes up after transplanting his mind into a “mechatronic” body and fights through the plagued city to share his discovery as the way to salvation. Turns out, no survivors are left and very few managed to evacuate. Even the capital, the empire's stronghold, is now all dead. But the cause of the “murderous zombies” is revealed, and the protagonist travels to its “hive-brain” – and kills it with a self-sacrifice.

It’s a solid plot to facilitate the protagonist’s journey.