By Adam Smith on December 13th, 2012 at 5:30 pm.
Do you remember the first time you played Super Meat Boy? What about VVVVVV, that noble ode to spikes, the eternal and unexpected end of so many heroes? Chances are almost all of you had exactly the same reaction – ‘this is horribly difficult and that would be fine if I was looking at a cat while I’m playing it. For my nerves, you understand.” Only a maniac would solve that problem by gluing a cat to the top of his monitor or attaching felines to his face. They scratch. Playing A Walk In The Dark may be the best solution. It’s out now and includes inch-perfect platforming, spikes and a cat. There’s a launch trailer below to prove it.
When I saw the first footage, I hoped for something more like the early Oddworld games or Flashback, mainly because I wanted to see a slickly animated cat climbing up ledges and exploring rather than exploding on a circular saw. If you do like to prevent cats from rubbing up against blades and spikes, you may be interested in purchasing A Walk In The Dark. It’s DRM-free, direct from the developer and costs €5.
13/12/2012 at 17:36 caddyB says:
I’ll buy it because: cat. That’s why.
13/12/2012 at 22:53 brulleks says:
I’m with you buddy (as Cat might say).
As long as it’s more VVVVVVV than (un)super meat boy.
14/12/2012 at 04:25 MadTinkerer says:
Looks like someone finally made a spiritual successor to Alley Cat. Ironically, it seems to contain no alleys whatsoever.
13/12/2012 at 17:39 oldkc says:
‘N+’ > A Walk In The Dark < Limbo
Discuss
13/12/2012 at 18:03 skyetetra says:
Since you asked for a discussion, I would like to point out that is incorrect mathematically. You can’t have both directions of inequality on the same line since it is ambiguous. Did you mean
‘N+’ > Limbo > A Walk In The Dark ?
Or maybe
Limbo > ‘N+” > A Walk In The Dark ?
Or was it some sort of ASCII art expressing an explosion of games coming out of A Walk In The Dark?
13/12/2012 at 18:28 jrodman says:
You can have it. 5 > 4 < 6 is valid, just silly.
13/12/2012 at 18:33 jon_hill987 says:
Yes, but ’6 > 4 < 5' is equally correct so it is ambiguous, you might as well say:
"Jean is shorter than Brutus but taller than Imhotep. Imhotep is taller than Jean, but shorter than Lord Scotland. Lord Scotland is twice the height of Jean and Brutus combined but only one-tenth of the height of Millsy. Millsy is at a constant height of x – y. If Jean stands exactly one nautical mile away from Lord Scotland, how tall is Imhotep?"
13/12/2012 at 19:04 xrabohrok says:
Doesn’t matter, Imhotep is invisible.
13/12/2012 at 19:27 The Random One says:
That’s why he said “discuss”, not “solve for x”.
14/12/2012 at 01:48 caddyB says:
If we aren’t trying to find a solution, why do we bother with discussing at all?
14/12/2012 at 04:26 MadTinkerer says:
Where did he go? That Invisibo!
14/12/2012 at 09:47 Squiffy says:
UGH, and people complain about grammar pedants. Maths nerds ruin everything.
13/12/2012 at 17:41 webwielder says:
The first game designed specifically for the front page of Reddit.
13/12/2012 at 17:43 Lord Custard Smingleigh says:
Spikes and a cat? That part of the sentence is redundant.
Cats are 86% spikes by volume.
14/12/2012 at 16:06 nil says:
Even their tongues have claws.
13/12/2012 at 18:01 Dark Acre Jack says:
Passed on the game, picked up the OST. One of the better ones I’ve heard this year. If it’s one thing a lot of indies get right it’s their music.
13/12/2012 at 18:20 webwielder says:
I feel like music and sound design has always been the great equalizer in game development. Back before graphics were good, you could still have great music and voice acting to give an unimpressive looking game some real charm/atmosphere/scariness. And today, indies have the same tools and abilities as the big guys to create great music and sounds. You don’t need a huge budget to make good music, just a good musician. Of course, when it comes to extensive foley work, AAA will still have the advantage.
14/12/2012 at 13:55 WhatKateDoes says:
Lush soundtrack, bagged it at the beginning of the year. The design and style of the game is really appealing, but I admit the game is less so. Worth buying the game for the music alone tho… its like the Commodore 64 all over again :D
13/12/2012 at 18:16 bit.bat says:
The animation feels a bit stiff and without charm to me…
13/12/2012 at 20:54 Agnosticus says:
My thoughts exactly
14/12/2012 at 14:57 kael13 says:
My immediate thoughts, too. I was excited until the cat started jumping around. Surely that’s the one aspect you would feel is essential to get right.
13/12/2012 at 18:17 Brise Bonbons says:
Hmmm, looks like a lovely game with some pretty unique platforming segments. Unfortunately this sort of game drives me up the wall and not in a good way.
Why must the indie space be so full of puzzle/instadeathsaw platformers?
I’ll slink back to Lone Survivor now.
13/12/2012 at 18:34 Archipelagos says:
A walk in the dark certainly doesn’t look like a walk in the park. /flee
13/12/2012 at 19:20 Skabooga says:
I’d say it takes place in a forest, but that’s just a shot in the dark.
13/12/2012 at 19:29 The Random One says:
That pun was a catastrophe. Maybe you’re not feline it today.
14/12/2012 at 16:11 Milos says:
Now, now, no need to be catty he tried his best.
13/12/2012 at 19:54 InternetBatman says:
It could certainly be a lark. /flea
13/12/2012 at 22:58 Emeraude says:
Looks lovely, if anything.
14/12/2012 at 05:27 Dervish says:
I laughed out loud at seeing this blatant Limbo + Meat Boy + VVVVVV combination. But if you threw in time puzzles, world rotation, and whatever else would lead to a Frankenstein of all the popular indie platformers, then it would at least be amusing-funny instead of sad-funny.
14/12/2012 at 11:41 DJ Madeira says:
I felt the same way. Even had the same “wall jump on the doors to open them” & buzz saw launchers as SMB and the same gravity-flipping (which seems to have been exhausted mechanically by, like, every platformer ever) as limbo. And the controls don’t even look all that tight.
14/12/2012 at 07:55 SubparFiddle says:
They lost me at “purrfect”…
14/12/2012 at 13:59 PC-GAMER-4LIFE says:
Bought this earlier its a superb 2D game which has pretty gfx, very good controls & gradually demanding but increasingly frantic gameplay. Well worth the £4/€5 asking price. You swap between the little girl & her cat in between levels the little girl levels are similar to the Alice Madness Returns 2D subgame. A lot of game to love if you like 2D platformers this is one of the best available right now.
When it gets the Steam Greenlight you will also get a Steam key for it.
Its the sort of game MS/Sony would charge £10-12 for if they ever manage to get their greedy little paws on it!!
14/12/2012 at 16:01 BlackestTea says:
I bought it today as I had the day off and thought I could spend a few delightful hours with it. Aesthetic and soundtrack are indeed superb, as others have mentioned.
Having been a big fan of SuperMeatBoy (most played game on steam) and VVVVVV (I need only three tried for Venni, vidi, vici) I was sure I would enjoy it. Somehow, I’m not. Sure, it’s great to see these beautifully desinged levels, but the controls feel just that little bit /off/ – which is sadly the worst thing to happen in this genre. Especially when characters are in the air, I feel like they are just too floaty. Now, of course that means that I’m simply not good enough at the game yet, but in SMB and VVVVVV I had fun loosing – I felt everytime I died, I knew how I would have to control better and differently to get further along and while it was a challenge, it always felt doable. Here, I just get frustrated. I feel like I should be easily able to do a segment, and I feel like I’m executing correctly, but it’s not happening. Of course, I might simply be too used to those other games to appreciate a different take on character movement.
Another thing that bugged me were the “hitboxes” that never quite felt accurate. Of course SMB and VVVVVV have the advantage here with their simplistic characters, but especially with the girl I often feel like I’m hitting stuff that I shouldn’t be hitting (I’m not sure whether that’s actually the case, though).
A final gripe with the game that’s more of a personal preference issue is that I don’t like having 3 different modes of control (jump&crouch, flip gravity, autorun&flip gravity&crouch) in the first 4 levels. That’s just because I appreciate when this kind of game teaches me a distinct skillset that I can improve on. Switching it every few levels doesn’t help me there. Neither do those automatically triggered jump-pads in the autorun sections: If I’m not able to make that flip by myself, don’t put it there!!
I will definitely continue to play, because I love the aesthetic so much, the negativity above just mirrors my first burst of disappointment. I’ll update the post if it all ends up making sense (hope!!) :)
16/12/2012 at 02:37 vivlo says:
YES ! i’d been willing it for so long !