Deadlight
This small shot from the Mexican developer Tequila Works. A platformer, focused mainly on puzzle solving a bit of combat. It happens in the city of Seattle, during a zombie apocalypse. Zombies, platforming and puzzles.
The visuals are great. Very detailed environments and characters. The animations between stages are very well produced. It’s probably the highest point of the game. Since the very first moments I was impressed by it.
The story is bad. Lots of cliché situations and setups. Among the several problems, are:
- Inefficient mystery: During the whole game, the protagonist have memory flashbacks. They give glimpses of what happen. But never enough to neither clarify what’s going on, nor to increase the tension. It feels that it’s a bunch of disconnected facts about the past.
- Awful character development: despite your main character, the entire cast of characters is either boring or annoying. Or both. The character from the sewers excels in both categories.
The tension of the gameplay is valid. It’s real. The zombies offer enough challenge. It’s not like the running kind from Left for Dead nor the super slow and easy to avoid from Alone in the Dark
I feel that if Tequila Works invested in a second game, it would be much more refined in the storytelling department. It falls short on its potential.
