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Genre: Adventure Developer & Publisher: Airo Games/Daedelic Entertainment Released: March 13, 2023 Requirements: OS, Windows 10 Processor: Minimum, Intel Core i5 6500; Recommended, Intel Core i7 8700 Memory: Minimum, 6 GB RAM; Recommended, 8 GB RAM Graphics: Minimum, Nvidia GeForce GTX 960; Recommended, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 DirectX: Version 11 Storage: 6 GB available space
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By flotsam
Airo Games / Daedelic Entertainment Promising more than 50 engaging puzzles, 28 hand-painted locations and a multitude of character animations, Life of Delta delivered way more than I initially thought it might. You play as Delta, a small service robot surviving in a post-apocalyptic world. Humans are no more, having been wiped out in a Great War. Delta is on a journey to find a lost friend, and all his wits as well as his service-ability will be required. A combination of tasks and puzzles await, not to mention some much larger rhinoceros-looking guards, a gaseous cow and robot spider or two. I did like how it looked. Detailed scenes and at times expansive and elaborate backgrounds combined with a muted colour palette produce a gaming environment well suited to the world being portrayed. The visuals help pull you in, starting with the short backstory cutscene that gets things going. You have to like a game where the maker pays attention to feedback. ‘Skip’ buttons have been added to at least two puzzles where the frustration levels were an apparent issue. They will appear after three minutes of effort, so don’t be dismayed if they aren’t there when you start, and of course you might solve those puzzles regardless and be none the wiser. I was pleased that the option appeared in a puzzle where I couldn’t discern the colour shadings to understand what the puzzle was telling me, but wasn’t even aware of the other until I Googled after the event. It involves a game of Pong, and I won easily, so the skip button never popped up. Speaking of Pong, there are a few other puzzles which are more like mini-games, but I didn’t think they were overdone, and overall I was pleased with the range of ‘puzzling’ that the game required. There is also a pong puzzle of a whole different nature! I was also pleased that conversations were just that, a straightforward exchange of information or banter, with no need to choose responses or to ‘win’ some oratory battle. You won’t understand what is being said; the robots and other characters conversing in their own language, but speech bubbles will helpfully translate for you. Delta has an almost sing-song cadence to his chittering, one that suits his size and the rest of him. Small in stature, he is big in heart, especially when it comes to his finding his friend and not even the ickiest solves will prevent his quest. Being a service bot, he also can’t help but get involved in the various character quests, even if they weren’t a necessary part of achieving his ends. He is also not above a quip or two, and I did quietly chuckle more than once. I didn’t count the puzzles so can’t tell you whether there were in fact more than 50, but there were a goodly number and I did have fun. I didn’t think it was a hard game, but more than one puzzle required some thoughtful working out and was the cause of a frustrated yelp or three. Placing gears, directing current, mixing potions, moving things with magnets, even making sushi; it’s a varied tapestry. I liked some more than others, and only thought one was a dud (it involves hitting musical notes as they cascade down the screen and while not hard is not the sort of puzzle I enjoy). Several require you to complete the puzzle three times with escalating complexity, and backing out will require you to start from the beginning as you can’t save in the middle of such puzzles. Its not a big deal but it is worth knowing. There are also inventory based conundrums, and you drag and drop from the inventory bar that appears when you move the mouse top of screen. I didn’t think any were obtuse, although some were a little left of field, and where to deploy the item could be frustratingly opaque in a couple of them. One involves distracting a dog, and I confess to looking at a walkthrough to work out whereabouts to throw the necessary item. While you do have hotspots for things to find and machines to use, not everything comes with a sign saying ‘use something here.’ The whole thing is point and click and played with the mouse (although you can use a gamepad). Delta ambles, somewhere between a walk and a run, and you can’t make him go faster. It's plenty fast enough though, so much so that Delta comes to a stop with a little slide. Many scenes scroll sideways, some up or down, and various exit points are indicated. You will get little pop-ups to indicate you have acquired a new objective, as well as when you complete one, and a small icon top right will let you pull up a list as well as some related dialogue should you need to review. Save your efforts at will. There is plenty of relevant ambient sound, and a rather good soundtrack underpins, rather than overwhelms, Delta’s adventuring. The end is a bit abrupt, and while one quest is complete, developments towards the end are all about setting up a sequel, which I didn’t mind but you might feel differently about. It took me about 6 hours and I had a rather fun time. I played on: OS: Windows 10, 64 Bit Processor: Intel i7-9700K 3.7GHz RAM: Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB DDR4 32GB Video card: AMD Radeon RX 580 8192MB
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