This is another in the genre I'm still not sure how to name, which includes Inside, Limbo, Black The Fall and similar, but the closest I've got thus far is puzzle platformer. They all include some form of puzzle element combined with a very linear journey on roughly one level, heavily focused on the visuals of the experience. This is no different.
You play someone, or something, heading across miles of land in order to reach the coast. In order to hurry you along, you've got a landspeeder, powered by steam in some manner, which can be fueled by picking up anything coloured a distinctive red. The game has a very flat palette, so it's obvious when you see things you can throw onto the fire.
Management of your vehicle is the core routine mechanic of the game, needing fuel adding to the engine, an accelerator that you push to keep you travelling and a pressure release valve for when you overwork it. You'll also acquire various other bits, including sails and a fire extinguisher. Everything is operated by easily identifiable big red buttons, and you'll spend most of your time running around trying to keep it going without running out of fuel or breaking down.
When you're not driving around, you'll be climbing around dilapidated buildings, shimmying through access hatches and pressing lots of buttons, in order to solve puzzles and progress through the game. Unfortunately, the puzzles aren't that challenging, and don't really require much thought. Unlike previous examples in the genre, this doesn't have a difficulty curve. There's not a climb upwards as multiple ideas are combined to form more elaborate overall results, instead simply placing more of the simple concepts together linearly. The trickiest moment of the entire game was when I'd simply forgotten one of the basic functions of the vehicle. It doesn't help (or rather, it helps too much), that there's a blinking light that indicates which tool you should be using.
But that's fine, these games can instead be built on atmosphere and a hinted but never fully revealed background that keeps you always wanting to see more. Alas, it doesn't do a brilliant job here either. The game has a variety of moments in which the vehicle suddenly gets into the groove and there's a deep majestic swelling of music as you dash across the desert/snow/road. And then it keeps doing it. There aren't enough differences between the various times that it does it to make this really stand out.
At least for the first 3/4s of the game, anyway. The last 1/4 is significantly more impressive, with a few more thrilling moments and some things that I wasn't expecting, but it's a bit of a slog to get there. It also fails the "cool ending" requirement, with the very last portion not having that "wow" moment that this genre has come to expect.
The basic mechanics of the game are solid, and it can be very satisfying getting the right combination of processes running together to get your vehicle up to full speed. The visuals and the sounds are great, with some meaty clunks and clicks from the vehicle and the nice ominous rumble from the environment, along with some very nice weather effects. The sounds of rain and hail were worth pausing to enjoy.
It's just the package overall doesn't do anything terribly new or exciting. It's good enough to play through for the couple of hours it'll take you, if you're Jonesing for another one of these sorts of things, but I wouldn't suggest hunting it down if you're not a slightly obsessive fan of the genre. I'd say go play The Final Station instead.
Tagged: Game Puzzle platformer 2D Easy difficulty PC