Hey guys, Ragnar here.
So, a few days ago I did something I haven't done in a long while;
I bought a game that popped up on Steam I'd never heard anything about before
- just because my gut instinct told me that could be right up my alley.
I got hooked by the cover art: a mysterious guy peeping through a door's spy hole with an edgy skull shaped mask,
behind him the trails of a cold and merciless killing spree - looks awesome!
A few seconds into the gameplay trailer I was greeted by a charming retro pixel art and a gameplay style
that looked like a marriage between Hotline Miami and Gunpoint.
And as it turned out this is exactly how I'd describe the game to someone during an elevator pitch.
So in this video I want to make a few points about Deadbolt.
What it is, whom I'd recommend it to, what it's good at, what could need a little improvement, and whatever else comes to mind.
So let's start at the bottom.
Deadbolt is a challenging 2D stealth-action side scroller, and I wouldn't call it a platformer though
... more on that later
It's developed by Hopoo games, the team that's also made the 2D action platformer Risk of Rain.
Deadbolt though, is in many ways very different to their former title.
You assume the role of The Reaper - that's right! You're the anthropomorphic personification of death
and you receive assignments from a mysterious voice in the hearthfire of your meagre hideout
from where you drive out to your target locations.
Equipped with a weapon of your choice you knock on the door and begin your typical harbinger of death duties.
You kill everyone. You shoot 'em, you slice 'em, you mangle 'em or you blow them up.
Similar to Hotline Miami, most of the time your goal is to simply kill all the undead.
Ah yeah, that's right. You're off against zombies, vampires, demons and other hellish abominations.
So as I've said earlier, and as you can see, the game is played from a side scroller perspective.
Keyboard moves the character and mouse aims and shoots your gun or you melee weapon.
So that's all really straightforward. What makes the whole thing really interesting
is the mixture of strategical planning, stealth, fast reflexes and pinpoint precision that's required to get to your goal.
Because the enemies really won't make it easy for you. They're pretty sensitive to all kinds of noises
so when you bludgeon someone to death other enemies will very likely hear it, even the floor above you, and rush towards you
and once they spot you you're in trouble, because one hit - no matter if it's a bullet or a melee attack - and you're toast.
So you've got to be careful and vigilant, plan out your moves and use Deadbolt's unique abilities to your advantage.
For example, you can turn into fog and disappear into the ventilation shafts to quickly flank your enemies
and surprise them from behind,
or if they're in the middle of taking a dump you kill them in the most degrading fashion possible. *chuckles*
In addition to that, you cannot reload the weapon you bring, so you'll have to throw it away after your magazine is empty
and pick up guns that your enemies drop.
It's all really really challenging, and you will die a lot.
But since no stage, even later on, takes longer than about two minutes to complete,
and you always respawn with almost no delay at all, just like in Hotline Miami or Super Meat Boy,
you're back in action before your frustration lets you quit.
And it can be really really frustrating.
I found myself shouting at the screen more than a few times, and I'm usually not the angry shouty type of gamer.
- and I've gotta say sometimes it was because I died in a very cheap fashion.
There are a few quirks here and there, for example:
when there's a weapon right in front of an air duct and you can't get the hell out since escaping into the vents
is on the same button as picking up a weapon.
Stuff like this could have easily been circumvented by assigning a different button to these actions.
Also the AI is often very unpredictable, which is generally a good thing because
it makes no two consecutive runs feel exactly the same.
But it also leads to situations that, at least feel, absolutely impossible to solve.
But most of the time, it is because I simply missed a crucial shot or didn't pay close enough attention
and the game punishes carelessness relentlessly.
So, overall, the very few shortcomings are absolutely forgivable
simply because solving a stage feels - just like a well made stealth game should - like a puzzle.
Try after try you optimise your strategies.
You'll learn the rooms and the vent layouts, and enemy positions and movements in and out
until you almost plough your way through them blindly.
Because executing your strategy will, in the end, feel like a graceful ballet of violence
- and you're the principle performer.
As I said, it's highly satisfying when your plan comes together
and in addition to that, pretty much every stage feels different as the designers implemented some very interesting
and fun ideas, especially with the enemy design.
After a few basic stages of standard foes you encounter vampires that can walk on ceilings,
some enemies store their souls in jars in a different place, so
you have to destroy those jars in order to prevent them from constantly resurrecting and stay down.
In some missions you just have to gather information so it's absolutely viable to cleverly circumvent and avoid enemies
- lure them somewhere else while you steal the intel.
And the absolute pinnacle are the boss stages.
Contracts in which your goal is to eliminate certain key figures of the undead organisation.
For example, in one stage you have to kill two vampire sisters whose souls are tied to each other
so if you kill one she will just resurrect from the dead, which means you have to murder both of them in quick succession.
But since they're located in two different buildings you have to clear out both buildings first, and then kill them off really quickly.
Or, in one stage you have to hunt down an engineer who is so paranoid that he booby trapped the entire building.
So you have to spot and deactivate all his traps,
and if you're cool, like me, you can use it against the guards. It's really cool.
Or in another stage, the building is being targeted by a sniper on another roof
so as soon as you step into the light, she'll mutilate you from a distance.
So you have to shoot out lights and avoid being seen at all costs while trying not
to be torn to pieces by all the demon guards roaming the building.
This diversity is just plain fun, satisfying, and makes time fly faster than you'd expect
so that, even if it's sometimes ridiculously difficult, you'll be through the game faster than you think
and it feels like Deadbolt could easily throw three times as many cool stages towards you.
Luckily, once you're through you can replay it in the hard mode... ooh gosh!
And it comes with a pretty cool level editor tied to Steamworks - so there's probably gonna be an endless supply of ever new stages built by the community.
It's also pretty satisfying to replay already cleared stages with new weaponry that you buy from a shady figure at the docks.
You want to go in with akimbo guns? Silenced pistol? Silenced shotgun? You got it!
Oh, and of course you can also choose the signature scythe as your instrument of death.
After all you are the fucking Grim Reaper!
So here's my verdict:
If you liked the instantly gratifying, ultra violent stealth-action of Hotline Miami
and you're not appalled by retro pixel art style,
if you enjoy challenging, sometimes frustrating, tactically demanding stealth games
that require you to bring quick reflexes and a slight tolerance for frustration
you'll enjoy the Hell out of Deadbolt.