Grey Area Reviews

I didn't have a lot of expectations going into Grey Area but I'm glad I put in the time to see it through until the end. Starting with the positive stuff (there's a lot), the controls feel very responsive and tight and the movement just feels Good. The spritework is clean and the environments have a good range of vibes from pretty to terrifying. Level design is overall solid, and there's a lot to explore and hidden goodies to find which, as a weirdo completionist, I appreciate. The characters and enemies I overall like, and there's a lot of charm to them and the world they inhabit. Oh and the music is like... really good. I could vibe to the soundtrack all day. The only real criticisms I have are that some of the sound effects are a bit too loud and the game's a bit on the short side. There's maybe something to be said about difficulty but that's always going to be very subjective. It's part of what makes the game what it is, and it takes so little time to retry a difficult section that I never found myself getting frustrated. Game good. Play it.

Grey Area's movement tech is a delight. Even when I die and need to reattempt a section (this happens a lot), I love watching Hailey sail through a bunch of fluid movement (at least when I execute cleanly). Hailey's character animations are adorable, the music is a bop, and the atmosphere is amazing. I... may have lost track of time and forgot to eat while playing this game.

Really wonderful game! Currently going back for my third playthrough. If you like Celeste, please consider checking this game out. The main mechanic of diving and bonking into walls to get pushed back is really clever, and once you adapt to it you can interact with the map in ways that other games often don't build for. The aesthetic of the titular Grey Area is really great, especially with the music making it feel more melancholic and resigned than outright hostile. Working your way through the collectibles also opens up a lot of the game, and helps recontextualize areas on subsequent playthroughs. All in all, I definitely recommend checking this game out. There are some areas of the game that could use some polish, but that's certainly true of many games. I would like to see keyboard remapping if at all possible, as currently it appears that the only remapping you can do is controller remapping. Throw in a few enemies that have inconsistent respawns and ledges that are just barely too high to use as shortcuts, and things can get a lil frustrating, although that is such a minor thing that I didn't notice until my current "no checkpoints" hardmode playthrough. Criticisms aside though, legit check this out. To be blunt, I've played much worse games that cost way more than this.

I followed Grey Area through out its development and I was super excited when it finally released! It's described as a difficult platformer, which drew me in. I think platformers that baby you are boring, I like the feeling of success I get from figuring something out on my own. Grey Area has been an amazing experience, the atmosphere, enemies, THE MUSIC. THE MUSIC!!!! It's been such an interesting new concept to enjoy. Grey Area has a few hiccups, but only a few that I noticed. For me personally, Sometimes the grey areas tend to blend in and were harder for my eyes to separate what was a platform and what wasn't. This isn't a huge deal since there are checkpoints literally everywhere so it isn't a huge loss if you pull an oopsie. Throughout my time playing this, every time I messed up a jump I ended up laughing at how I bungled it rather than being mad at the game. Regarding the difficulty of this game, it reminded me very much of how I felt playing Metroid Dread. Dread was very fast paced and had tight platforming and movements, and it took me a while to get the hang of. There were several times during my run through of Dread where I told myself I wouldn't be able to complete a section, but all I had to do was learn the patterns and I felt so much joy that I was able to do it on my own. Grey Area makes me feel the exact same way. You reach points where you think, "There's no way this is possible." and once I figured out the pattern, I was filled with that same feeling Dread gave me. I think if anyone enjoys a genuinely challenging platformer, I think you'd enjoy this game!

Extremely satisfying 2D platformer with a fantastic moveset. Solid, weighty movesets, good level designs, and a strange and creepy world to explore. It's really good! Play it!

I'd love to be able to give this game a positive review, but there's one particular fly in the ointment that precludes it. In brief, the final level consists of a series of five very long platforming challenges which must be completed consecutively, and while there are checkpoints, there's no ability to save at any point – the whole thing has to be done in a single sitting. While none of the five branches are beyond my ability individually, I can't do all five in one go without aggravating my carpal tunnel syndrome. As far as I can tell, there's no technical reason why saving between each branch can't be allowed, and the game does in fact allow mid-level saves in previous areas. When I brought this to the developer's attention, they expressed that they consider the inability to save in this final section to be an aesthetic feature that's more important than accessibility, and, well, I trust one understands why a positive review is off the table after that.

EDIT: Updates have been made to the game to address some of the initial issues others and I had, such as aggressively respawning enemies. I'd like to add credit to the development for being open to feedback, though I currently still stand by the majority of critique. Ultimately more frustrating than fascinating, I was rather interested at first in Grey Area from a mix of its pitch and seeing some of my mutual circles talking about it. Sadly, I just can't say it has delivered, even after 100%-ing the game and seeing both endings. While there's interesting mechanics at play, such as the surprisingly tight diving mechanic and its ability to stop on a dime or working around the gravity of black holes, there's just a bit too much outweighing the good; aggressively respawning enemies being one of my biggest gripes, to the point of essentially spawn camping the player. The game's entire suite of unlockable abilities are also completely tied to the first area; if you don't grab every goodie on your first run through the dream world, you won't have the tools to get anything special following that, most likely leaving you the same from game start to game end. (This isn't necessarily a bad thing, mind; the base tools you have are more than sufficient. But the way each potential ability is locked behind having an earlier one is not great.) --Spoilers-- On the note of collectible gathering, I kind of felt insulted by the results of trying to complete the game in full. Being hit with some cheap jumpscares and screen flashes with elements that stuck on the screen well after the initial pickup is especially bad in a tight platformer, even moreso when they don't go away on respawn. Ending off with one last Sonic.exe grade jumpscare after struggling through the last hurdles of the game to reach the "bad/true" ending (which was otherwise just a shorter version of the 'normal' ending) was what really got my goat and inched me from a middling grade to a negative one. -- End Spoilers -- I do need to respect the devs' time and work on this project, mind; the sprite artwork is consistently solid, the area designs are fascinating, and I was especially fond of the towers/catacombs section in particular; the stage design and ambient beats felt especially great in the blue brick dungeon! But I sadly just can't recommend this game to most, at least not without a pretty large asterisk.

This game is fantastic! If you love pretty difficult precision platforming, this game might be just for you. But it gets pretty hard (tho I was playing in Painful Mode)! My favorite part was the final boss :)

I had a blast with this game! It definitely says something positive about the game that I threw myself at the final boss fight for over two hours, finally rolled credits, and immediately restarted the game to look for secrets. The platforming is really precise and clearly designed for players much more competent than I am, but it didn't feel unfair or discouraging, since checkpoints are pretty liberal. Even in sections where I died many, many times, (like the aforementioned final boss) I never felt like it was no longer fun, and finally beating an area was always a huge rush. I would however definitely recommend swapping the Dive Drop from tap to hold; it makes it a lot easier to make precision landings. The art is really nice, and the character and enemy designs are excellent. The story is kind of bare bones but very charming, and the boss fights are really well designed. They were probably my favorite part of the game, so I wish there were more of them! My only real gripe: the game can be played carefully, but Hailey is designed to be able to go super fast, if you get the momentum going. Flying enemies appear at strategic locations to allow speedy players to bonk off them and go soaring forward to maintain their speed. Unfortunately momentum is frequently halted by enemies that appear out of thin air, enemies that spawn in different positions every reload of the area, or the occasional flying enemy who doesn't show up when he's supposed to, leaving Hailey without a stepping stone to bounce off of. These problems made attempting to learn a level and zip through it pretty difficult, since you couldn't always count on an enemy's presence. This is easily mitigated by moving through levels carefully, but it was a shame I couldn't make use of the speed mechanics more. Oh and an important note: if you're playing with keyboard, the select key on the main menu is J, which I worked out by pressing every button until something worked. It'll tell you this in the How To Play screen, but you cant get in there until you've figured out what button to press. Now I'm going to go look at some pizza

Having seen a lot of the game during its development, and having briefly played a demo of it, I expected to like it, but what I didn't expect was that it would become one of my favourite 2D platformers [b][i]of all time.[/i][/b] While there are a few issues, like certain audio being way too loud (the boss that bonks), being unable to maximise in windowed mode, autosave feeling inconsistent and missing in places where it shouldn't be, as well as the game lacking any kind of control rebinding - these rough edges do very little to undermine what is a truly incredible game. The story is engaging, with charming and cute characters, the enemies, environments, bosses, all look fantastic. And the MOVEMENT!!! Moving around in this game feels so snappy, with the main gimmick (diving and dive-bonking) being really satisfying to use. Soundtrack has also been really nice to listen to as I progress through the game, with some really cool boss themes. Hailey's little animations are really cute too - the way she climbs up on benches, the way she slides along the ground or sprints after a dash, or even just her idle animation, it's oozing with charm. In my opinion, this game is up there with the likes of Celeste, Super Meat Boy, or Cave Story when it comes to just how good and fun it feels to play. It does get pretty darn difficult, so it might not be for everyone, but if you're into that - you're gonna have a blast with this. Really good level design, boss fights that keep you on your toes, I cannot recommend this game enough.