D Life Reviews

Works great on Steam Deck! The right trackpad works as the mouse, click it to take snapshots. Left and right triggers also work for left and right mouse clicks (you'll need both in the timed mode, just note, left trigger is right mouse click, right trigger is left mouse click). Such an easy game to play, very relaxing and I love everything about it! Such a pleasant experience. I'll be playing it on my lunchbreaks, a nice way to unwind. Hopefully I can beat some of the high scores already there haha! Wonderful game, Mindware! I think this could be your best release so far! Edit: Yay, I have the highest score in timed mode as I write this (kealkeal) haha

It's a stretch to call it a game, but as a sort of toy/passtime it's really quite entertaining. It's notably better if using a nanokontrol2 as the feel of control over what's going on is that much stronger, but otherwise a standard mouse/keyboard does suffice. Special mention for the sound/music which massively contributes to the ambience.

This is a fun little game! Your goal is pretty simple - you're given an objective to take a picture with your mouse pointer as the center point. Find a spot on the field that seems to have enough of the particles you need, then hold down the mouse button to make a circle expand - let go, and you'll take a photo and get evaluated for it. This said, you don't have to be perfect (MOST of the time); unless the objective specifically says "JUST [x] colors" or demands you have a color you missed, you can actually get a few particles from one other color in and you'll still pass the level. But this is where the trickiness begins. Beating the game is not that hard, but in order to score high, you're gonna need to get risky. Larger circles can get you a bonus, getting EXACTLY what the game wants from you gets you a bonus, and getting a buttload of particles gets you increasing bonuses on top of the whole score you're already getting from having those particles in the first place. And if having that circle get so big it encompasses half the field isn't enough of a pixelated daredevil move for you? Go ahead and mess with the particles themselves! You can move all of the particles of a given color around as one, you can "mutate" a given color to make it interact with the other colors differently, and either pull them into your photo zone or try to isolate them away from your intended shot. Oh, and be careful because once enough particles of a given color are together, they tend to start zooming around the field in an attempt to split up or merge with other particles, so hope you can lead your shot if you're going for the REALLY big particle counts. Oh, and if 6 stages aren't enough, try the "time limit" mode, an endless game (well, until your time runs out or you botch a picture) where you can choose an objective from two possibilities each round... just be careful since they tend to get a lot more stringent about what you're allowed to photograph in this one, and you might get your time reduced from the get-go if you pick the easy option... though if the other objective looks like it's gonna be a pain, it may be quicker to go with it in the long run. Really, there's not a lot more to say; it's a simple, fun little game where you can easily knock a round or two out before you go to work in the morning, and I can appreciate a short, arcadey little title like this. Got some nice, relaxing music to go with it, too - sounds a little like something you'd hear in an old educational film, which seems strangely appropriate now that I say that... (Oh, and if you have no idea what a NanoKontrol2 is and only just learned about it from watching the videos, no need to worry. A keyboard and mouse will do you just fine.)

Think the core idea of pokemon snap but faster and you take pictures of colour patterns instead of pokemon. Really simple, really addictive and really relaxing.

Unique and oddly addictive. The gameplay is difficult to describe in words but it's basically a sort of blend of photography, fishing, and a particle physics simulator, all wrapped in the skin of a 1980s Namco arcade cabinet. There are two modes: Basic which has six stages with fixed goals and no time limit, and a Timed "roguelike" mode with random objectives for each stage. There is Steam Leaderboard support for both modes, and since the Timed mode has no predetermined end point I think will be the main appeal for most players (Basic mode seems to have a fixed score cap of about 162,000 once you've mastered it). The game's six different colored particles are controlled with the arrow keys for movement, and by clicking on their respective icons at the bottom they can be "mutated," which causes one of the colors to be repelled from or attracted to the other five each time it is clicked. The basic idea is to cycle through mutations in a way that allows you to group the colors together into tight formations, which makes them easier to control with the arrow keys, and thus easier to take a high-scoring photograph. It may sound complicated but you'll get the hang of it fairly quickly. My only real complaint about the game is that the Timed mode feels too easy, in that the difficulty doesn't seem to increase much, if at all, from stage to stage. I played about 30 minutes of Timed after a couple of hours in Basic, and even after getting through a dozen stages, the objectives remained quite simple and I had more than 3 minutes of extra time left. For $7 though I've had a lot of fun. And these days it's a pleasure to play something that is genuinely original, as D Life is. Something that also needs special mention: The sound and music are superb, honestly good enough to be worth the cost of the game by themselves. It is as you would expect from Yuriko Keino, who was also responsible for Dig Dug, Pole Position, and Xevious back in the early 80s. 40 years on, she hasn't lost her touch.

Pretty lovely synesthetic arcade game to which you'll find yourself returning again and again. The idea is following: electron-based lifeforms are presented on the game field, there are 6 different colours of electrons. Sometimes electrons group together to create a life form, sometimes they dissolve into the separate particles. The goal of the game is to "take a photo" of such electron lifeforms while following the specific task. Usually the task involves a condition of having the certain number of colours you need to get into the range of are you "catch". But there are variations to the formula, e.g. when you also need to get specified coloured electrons caught. To catch them, you choose a point on the field and your radius of circle starts enlarging while getting more and more electrons into the range. If you are not satisfied with what you get, you can quickly disable the range and then start again. To make things easier, there is a statistic on the screen that tells you which colours and how many electrons per colour are currently in the range. Though, from my experience, it's better to train the eye and attempt to count the colours by yourself instead of looking at the stats. Another tool that player can use is wind control (which affects one colour of electrons you can select at the time) and there is also a request for electrons of selected colour to "mutate" (which often makes an impact of whether they tend to group together to make life form or, instead, separate into particles). This game is a score-chasing arcade by design. Various things define how big score you are getting, and of course if you enjoy such playing style, you'll find this game exciting. It's really one of those "hey, just one more time!" titles that can bring you the feel of joy and smile to your face. There are two modes of the game: Basic Mode, which fits more calm/relax playstyle as there is no time restriction; and Time Limit, where you have given time constraints per task, and also missions are more varied, and often you can choose between more difficult/risky task that might give you bigger score on succeed, and simpler task that is safe but might be not as thrilling to do. So depending on how you feel, you can choose this or that mission and alter the groove of the game. I should also note that the game, while minimalistic in presentation, is very pleasant in both how it looks and sounds (fun fact: legendary Namco arcade musician worked on sound design here). There are also cool hidden bonuses like ability to enable alternative soundtrack, and also there are achievements to chase. And if you are a music maker, here is a pretty cool detail: you can use Korg nanoKontrol2 as controller for this game instead of keyboard & mouse or gamepad. In the end, I can say I enjoy this unique and fun game pretty much. Thumbs up! ;)

D Life is an unusual, but addictive, puzzle game of sorts, mostly played with a single mouse button, where the electronic soundtrack reacts to your actions, and combined with the minimalistic but colourful visuals, results in a strangely appealing and engaging experience. Despite its apparent simplicity, this is one of those games that is easy to play, but hard to master. A worthwhile experience, for those who are looking to try something different.

Great little game/software toy! Inspired by Conway's Game of Life, the game is also reminiscent of Osmos (the attraction/repulsion of lots of small organisms), and while I've never played it myself, the life photography theme also reminds me of what I've seen of Pokemon Snap. It's an engrossing (albeit occasionally frustrating) gameplay flow where you can spend many minutes trying to set things up, but in the end it all depends on the moment of truth where you actually take the picture.

"Traditional Arcade Shooting based on Conways Game of Life with sound design by the NAMCO sound engineer that was responsible for Dig Dug and Xevious with callbacks to 80's and 90's computer processors that you can also control with a KORG Synth" There's a very small subsection of nerds that can read that pile of word salad and immediately understand why this "game" has a unique amazing charm to it. It's strange for the sake of being strange, and that's a damn cool thing. 7 dollars off sale might be steep for anyone who doesn't have the wrong brain arrangement where something like that sounds awesome. For either of those camps however, there's something charmingly unique about this weird thing that makes me have to write something about it. Check it out.

A real work of art with great music. Different and unique compared to any game I have played. Another imaginative and refreshing Mindware gem