Zombasite Preview

Zombasite, currently in beta from Soldak Entertainment, is the most fun you will have not knowing what it is you're doing. 

And before that sounds too much like faint praise, allow me to explain, it is a lot of fun. 

Zombasite is an isometric action RPG similar to Soldak's earlier game, Depths of Peril. In it, you control a clan in a small settlement. You and other clans are fighting for control of a world on the brink of total collapse, thanks to a twisted necrotic parasite known as the "Zombasite." While you attempt to keep control of your clan and stop the various members from killing each other whenever they get bored or angry enough, a bar at the bottom slowly rises, showing the growth and infection rate of the parasites.

And so, a desperate struggle emerges between you and the various forces. While clans will try to raid you and your enemies below and above ground will send gruesome monsters to attack you, you also have to protect your clan from zombies and research ways to slow down or stop the parasite. You will find yourself focusing on a billion different systems and subsystems in an attempt to keep your clan from collapsing. Even at the lower difficulty levels, I can tell you it is going to be an uphill battle to keep that from happening. I have put several hours into the game, and trying to do everything at once is going to leave you wandering the wasteland and wondering just how your illustrious clan wound up being two people in a fort with no doors. 

But that isn't to say the barrier of entry is all that high. In fact, quite the opposite is true. Zombasite provides its players with many more ways to win than to lose: simply killing all the opposing clans (military victory), having an alliance with the remaining clans left on the map (diplomacy), to completing all the quests on the map. The game also tracks your knowledge and lore about the parasite, making the zombies and infection more manageable as you discover more things about the world. Most enemies are fairly easy to kill early on provided you know what you're doing, while giving you a game experience with a very slow difficulty curve, to its benefit. 

The world is also dynamic and persistent. You can start a new game in an already-generated world, with all that would entail, and as you go along, the world will change. Sometimes people will kill your targets before you can get to them. Clans are constantly shifting in alliance and loyalty between each other, and will go out on raids. Your own clanmates have specific weapon and armor preferences, all of which impact how well they'll be able to fend off invasion and join you on raids. Clans may leave you alone, or they might rush full-on towards you, or spawn demon gates, or any number of things. When  you pop someone into a new instance of the world, they take up a new region, but use the same lore and other features of the older space.

But while the game is in good form currently, it still has a long way to go before it's out of early access. The systems are a little obtuse, and while the help system is helpful, it's also a row of icons along the bottom of the screen that are easy to miss and don't always contain the most useful of information. The sound design also sometimes borders on oppressive, especially in larger battles. When coupled with a skill system that's obtuse even at the best of times, this can make things incredibly frustrating as enemies skill upward. 

Overall, though, I'm looking forward to seeing what Zombasite gets with a full version. It's original, unique, and very complex in spite of its basic trappings, and with a few kinks worked out, should be a new classic. 

The Reviewer was given a copy of the game in exchange for this review. The game is still in early access and is subject to change.

Sym Review

Sometimes, a game doesn't need to be complicated or big to be interesting

Sometimes, a game can just be odd black and white scratch art and the way to bring its concept to fruition is by forcing everything in it's world to try and kill you. Sometimes being as simple or as basic as a flash game forces you to look at the game, try to see what it says, and apply those things outward. 

Sometimes, a game's just beautifully dark.

All these things are Sym.

Sym casts you as a teenager with social anxiety disorder. Not actually, since as someone with social anxiety disorder I can tell you that there is absolutely zero chance that you will be ripped apart by saws, eaten by carnivorous plants*, or any of the numerous other fatalities that the game will throw at you. Sym casts you as a kind of metaphorical representation, a long-armed, long-legged creature with the power to enter a "dark world." You must navigate through this hostile world, avoiding the numerous dangers and things that would like nothing more than to kill you, to the exit of the level, solving numerous puzzles along the way. 

The scratchy black and white art gives it an eerie feeling, as if something's always slightly off or something is about to leap out from around the corners. Combined with the creepy ambient music, the atmosphere reminded me a little of Limbo (another black and white game filled with traps and things trying to kill you) which isn't bad company to have. Sym is, however, its own game. 

For those familiar with puzzle-platformers, there isn't much new here. You run through the level flipping switches and pressing buttons and evading enemies to find the exit to the level and escape. The light world/dark world mechanic comes with different dangers: Plants won't eat you if you're in the Dark World, you can walk right over saws in the light world, and so on and so forth.

But what got to me as I was playing it was that this was more or less a metaphorical story. The main character (named in press materials as "Joshua" but nameless in the actual game itself) goes through his life trying to find a safe space, finds himself beset on all sides by things that want to kill him, gets treatment and is rehabilitated, and finally either decides he's better off alone or finds a way to rejoin the world. At this point, the level editor unlocks, leaving the game with the statement "Now you are free to create your own worlds". I wasn't directly dragged through the story by the nose a la Gone Home, nor was it dizzyingly abstract the same way, say, some Twine games are. It left me with just enough to figure out the plot. 

I feel bad about dinging the game for being incredibly frustrating at points (especially the "compactor" level in the "Rehabilitation" section and the entire ending sequence, which involves man-shaped figures running to and fro and who kill on contact regardless of dark or light world), but there were definitely points when I felt the game was a little too unforgiving for its own good, and thought about putting it down. However, this appears to be part of the point, more or less. I mean, it's portraying an unforgiving world, so maybe the sheer difficulty spikes in the middle of the levels are actually part of that?  But a game should never be so frustrating that the player actually stops playing it. That is not, and should not be, a thing that happens. If a player stops playing, then the message gets lost. People don't usually come back, and you've failed at conveying whatever point or story you're trying to get across.

But in the end, I fully recommend Sym. It's an interesting game with some very deep levels, and well worth the challenge. I especially enjoyed the exploration aspect to the level-select menu and the bizarre twists of the "Rehabilitation" section. I suggest you give it a try.

Score: 4 out of 5

Full Disclosure: The reviewer received a copy of Sym for this review

*I'm still afraid of this, though.