📜Maybe someone remembers the short humorous indie 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐲 𝐅𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠, which came out when it was still new to Steam,
So, the developers from 𝐁𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐨 𝐆𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐬 were finally given a full-fledged team and finances for a suddenly Immersive sim! To put it simply, a first-person stealth action game with sandbox and shooter elements which retained the author's original approach to telling a detective story,
But, unfortunately, now without a non-linear narrative, with budget intelligent "cats" in the main plot roles.
Look, the gameplay loop is actually the same every level, we, as an agent, land on a frigate consisting of rather narrow rooms of neat rectangular geometry with a light general stylization of graphics (but without any too distinctive design features), captured by space pirates wandering back and forth, and here the fun begins: with a thoughtful unhurried approach, you have a huge number of options for eliminating dummies with improvised means,
For example, in addition to standard conventions like fuel pipes built into the ship's compartments, you have a bunch of ways to create a boom-bang yourself, you will need any gaseous cloud (for example, press on the hand gel hanging on the wall), and the easiest way is to throw a lighter in there, that's all,, the most effective way is the most dangerous for your own health, and I'm not revealing any secrets,
Absolutely to every item in the game immediately attached instruction for use or a warning about the explosiveness or danger of combining with electricity,
On the SHIFT button we have a "magnifying glass" with which we can scan everything around for descriptions and warnings about what in no case "cannot" (i.e. can) be done with literally every interactive object in the game, even if they are at the end of the room, the zoom and "pause" of the entire game works while you read. You see... The game attracts not by its complexity, although death from 2 bullets exists, but by the sandbox elements, which are mixed together differently in each playthrough: you can place a banana peel as a trap, then jump on top of the stunned enemy's back to smash him in the.. sink, or make him catch bullets from his own teammate, or you can hack turrets, forcing them to target your enemies, you can try to just throw books from around the corner when you're tired (naturally, objects have durability), or you can break the glass in the ship and fly away into space with the pirate, oor you can just steal the necessary thing from pockets without resorting to force,
If the enemy is within the radius of fire or local physics jokes and his life bar is empty, then you can come up and unscrew his head - this is a mandatory action, otherwise the head will fly to the station of endless rebirth (spawn), which makes several opponents invincible if you take a thoughtless approach to your actions, So you should throw the "Skullguard" into the nearest garbage chute (if such is unlocked) to irrevocably destroy the defeated NPC, or keep it in the inventory for the time being, but there are only 5 slots for all items, which makes you think about what to wear, and backtrack / remember what you left, and the head in your pocket might also grumble.
And that's not all - if a soldier notices you, you have ways to extinguish the alarm, find the captain's microphone on the bridge, or take away a charged radio, however, the more idiots you killed, the more radio charges you will need to "parody the roll call with a male voice" and stop the search, killed more than 3, then you will need as many as 2 radio stations with only 5 available inventory slots, I remind you! and stopping the alarm here is vitally important, because the ship's autonomous defense still remains, when the alarm is turned on, robotic fish-swords spawn, ceiling turrets are activated, and most importantly, first aid kits and saves are blocked. Moreover, if you leave something broken behind, the NPCs will pay attention to it, so don’t forget to poke at the interactive tablet maps on the walls, which activate the repair of broken things on the ship (by the way, a life hack, flying into space by breaking a window will make the guards think that you are dead),
Also, in locations there will always be closed doors that can be opened with keys of a certain color, both the ventilation and the space gates will also be closed until you find the right combination, hidden in one of the dozens of humorous notes left by cats, and each runl the codes are random, in fact they are four-digit 1-9, but only in the letter version (you will understand if you see it),
And our main goal is to find several "cat keys" to free the native inhabitants of the ship from cages (yes, there are also visual Easter eggs on the life of cats),
But that's not all, after saving you you need to find a signal lamp, be sure to open an exits into space, call the capsule and put the fluffy ones in there, and the levels seem super simple and even "suffocating" at first, but each next one opens up new possibilities, but remember! that every new opportunity is also a danger for you, and your opponents are becoming denser and more “elusive”,
Aand when weapons appear in the game, capsule quest is no longer the finale, you will have to climb back onto the ship, because pirate reinforcements will be docked to it, you can use this opportunity as a "shooter break", or immediately throw various grenades at the new squad, or you can prepare the base for defense, or even covered in blood (you are given only 1 extra life per run) steal the pirate key, crawl to the hatch, and get out on their own ship,
Phew, that's it, the gameplay loop is over, and so on 15 times for 30-50 minutes,
At the same time, our heroine is incredibly flexible, she can cling to hooks on the ceiling like in Mission impossible, she can climb under any table or a small crevice between toilets, she can dodge, but btw she can’t run, but the pace of the game is still quite fast,
The game is also equipped with a huge number of body-mechanics, you can slip on soap yourself, sitting in the ventilation for a long time is fraught with an increase in the "smell" scale, which the enemy can smell, and not only smell, you will basically leave whole clouds behind you, but you can wash off this by finding liquid soap or a shower, there is even a strange "cramped" mechanic when crawling. Don't have an object handy that could distract the dummy?No problem, you can press "Tab" and select the "spit" option, or shout loudly, raising the alarm, and yes, if you find something that can shoot, then you can't do without as many as 4 BUTTONS for shooting, and all the mechanics are made ultra smoothly, nothing to complain about,
And if you carelessly destroy the entire room in battles, you can constantly step on glass, which you will have to take out of your foot by pressing tab, and the same applies to caught bullets,
At the same time, there is a world simulation that lives its own life independently of you, so if you go poking everything in a row, then some enemies can hit something on the other end of the ship due to the consequences of some of your actions and activations,
The plot of the game is probably the weakest point, although it must be admitted that cutscenes here are given quite a lot of time, of course, they tried to convey the signature style from "𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐲 𝐅𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠", a couple of interesting techniques for working with the first-person camera and that's it, there is not enough humor in conversations with cats, and the main story is too predictable, and even flat, but now no one will trash the game because it is a paid game but lasts only 15 minutes !!, like people trashed "TFoL", probably, this left fear in the soul of the author,
Moreover, each map (which is either an icebreaker, or a food delivery, or just a living space) has its own side secret or.. as the author called it, a "gimmick", which you can unlock only by studying notes, and an audio cassette that you can listen to in the hub, so the game's replayability is also quite good,
True, the maps lack verticality and multi-story, but from the developer's comments I understood that this is due to difficulties with the AI, well, it`s okay, in general it`s absolutely deaf here, but at least the enemies aren't blind, from such a low-budget game and you can't expect more, although there are even several dozen voice actors,
🏆𝐀𝐧𝐧𝐧𝐚𝐩𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐚 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 gave money to the creative team that is still tinkering and experimenting with the open source id engine from Doom 3 - and got another gem in its portfoliofor me it's not inferior to their other hits like Stray, Neon White or Outer Wilds, that's what all indie publishers should do, even "Devolvers" are far from doing the same thing.
😊 𝗦𝘂𝗯 𝘁𝗼 𝗺𝘆 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺`𝘀 𝗖𝘂𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿`𝘀 𝗽𝗮𝗴𝗲:
https://store.steampowered.com/curator/41977550
