I wonder if there's a sub-genre name for this type of game yet? Everyone always simply says "it's like Inside", which is true, but I don't think Inside-alike really works as a name. Though I suppose we have Metroidvania. If you have any suggestions, leave a comment.
Anyway, this is a 2.5D cinematic puzzler, set in a Communist dystopia, in which you play one of the endless worker drones, who one day has just had enough of cycling on an electricity generating bicycle. So you get off and go on the run, trying to survive the ever present ceiling mounted machine guns. These have a certain field of view, entering into which results in your sudden death. Other things that result in death are steam, industrial machinery, hunter killer robots and ponds.
You have a range of tricks to get past all of these, starting with jumping and a lot of crouching, and extending to control of both the other worker drones through the power of a laser pointer and eventually a robot dog. The dog is an interesting one, being able to power various equipment as well as having the amazing talent of being able to turn into a box you can stand on. The dog is designed to tug at the heart strings, wagging its "tail" when it sees you etc, but it falls a bit flat. Or I might just be a heartless monster.
The puzzles are never massively complex, though a couple got rather frustrating due to either tricky timing issues or the requirement for some pixel perfect jumping (I'm mainly thinking of the floating thing. You'll know it when you get to it.)
Some of the puzzles may well kill you a few times before you figure them out, but the game has a very generous respawn system, so it's never going to annoy you that much. That's a really nice feature for this sort of puzzler actually. There are also occasional helpful visual cues, which make the whole thing a bit easier. That's especially important given the dark, crowded atmosphere.
As is the standard for these, it's not very long, clocking in at 1-2 hours. That's not a bad length, but I think the premise could have held up for a couple more. Still, it's a good example of the type and was an enjoyable experience.
Recommended.
Tagged: Game Puzzle platformer 2.5D Easy difficulty PC