Dark Light Reviews

Fun To SpeedRun

I'm not gonna lie and say I finished the whole game before writing this review. I didn't even get close, I can't get past the first batch of levels. However, I believe a lot of my observations probably hold for the rest of the game. The basic idea is a little flawed. It's 3D Closure, but being in 3D is really not an advantage. In Closure, most of the spotlights extend for an infinite distance, at least until they hit something. You know, like light does. I can only assume that this couldn't be implemented in Dark Light, because it's infinitely more intuitive than the way Dark Light does it, where light extends a fixed distance and then just stops. This system is really awkward to work with. There are certainly interesting puzzles that this limitation leads to, but most of the time, it's a hindrance and an annoyance. Being 3D also makes the platforming very difficult. There is a reason the platforming in 3D puzzle-platformers usually doesn't demand much. Executing puzzles should never be the hard part, so if a puzzle requires a precise solution, setting it up should be easy. There are all sorts of tricks great games use to accomplish this. One of the more obvious ones is Quantum Conundrum. Most of the tricky platforming in that game comes after you get the ability to go into bullet time. Contrast this with Dark Light, where the only attempt made to ease up the platforming is that when you fall off the edge of the universe, you're instantly teleported back up. I like this, I wish more games went this route than having long death screens (funny enough, I hate it most in Quantum Conundrum), but it's a band-aid fix and not really going to help much. The puzzle I got stuck on wasn't even a platforming puzzle, really, just a puzzle where you have to have two spotlights aimed at each other so they don't fall over. But you have to keep doing this to progress around two corners. Cutting corners precisely is not easy and one mistake instantly screws everything up. I have no idea how this puzzle ever got solved in the first place, it's almost impossible. The general atmosphere is just bad, too. The music and the visuals are so bland. Compare this to the highly stylized and richly designed Closure, and it's night and day. Developer, if you're reading this, which you probably are, I want to say something to you. Your YouTube channel is great and you have a deeply entertaining creative spark. You probably made this game knowing it wasn't amazing, in fact, you probably just made it so you could have the experience of making a game. I think that's commendable. The learning experience was almost certainly more important than making something worth playing. Now, you have everything lined up to create a great game. Keep going, I know you can do it.

cool game, fun to speedrun, bugs make it much more interesting

A clever little puzzle game that requires a fair bit of creativity to finish. The hardest part is working around the platforming to achieve what you've imagined. I'm positive that my solutions for some of the puzzles were not intended, but it was quite fun to push the limits of the game. Definitely worth buying on sale, but I wouldn't be mad if I paid full price. I'm excited to see what this dev creates in the future.

amazeing game . the aspect of this game is super unique with really good level design and really good speedrunning potential if youre into that short form : mid air box jump go brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr