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What's In Your Head?

  • Frogge
  • 08/14/2019 02:47 PM
  • 1243 views

Dead Again by Smokingspoon
Length: ~1 hour


Dead Again was a real surprise! Usually games that look like this appear on RMN as either demos or just game pages with no download and they never end up getting finished, so imagine my surprise when the game was completed the day it was uploaded. It's fortunate, because Dead Again is one of the most unique rpg maker games I've played this year.

Unfortunately, the fact that it's a first time release of an old game makes me somewhat reluctant to nominate, or recommend it for the Misaos. Otherwise this one would've absolutely gotten at least one vote from me.

Dead Again is a lot more open-ended than probably most other rpg maker games you've played. It drops you into its world and gives you the option to do whatever you want in it. There is an end goal - to escape your street before it is nuked, and there are various different ways to do it. If you find a bolt cutter, you can get a bike and ride it out of the city. If you find the keys to it, you can get in a truck with two other people and escape together.


We're on the death road to Canada now!


As well as having various different endings, the game also has a fair share of its secrets. You can't save in the game, but each run lasts anywhere from 2 minutes to 15 minutes. My only complaint here is that the intro is a bit tedius to see again and again after a while. Since the title screen itself is fully evented, perhaps after your first playthrough it could have turned on a switch that makes the intro not play? Just a little suggestion to make it a little less tedius. The gameplay's secondary focus, the combat, while admiteddly very simple, does its job just fine. I never ended up finding much need to use most of the skills, with the only the swing that hits multiple enemies coming in handy once or twice, but other than that this was actually a really easy game. The mechanic with the zombies coming closer is pretty rad. It's a bit simple, like I said, but still cool to see an rpg maker game attempt something a little different with its combat. It's pretty easy to avoid the zombies for most of the game anyway, so it doesn't really overstay its welcome as battling won't be a major part of the experience. The only thing I will point out here is that running out of resources never really becomes an issue, and there is only one spot in the game where you can get more food anyway. I feel like the whole "I'm getting hungry" thing didn't even need to be there because you actually can't starve, which I originally thought was what would happen if I just kept going to bed every day.

That being said, the only other thing I was somewhat disappointed by is that you don't get any rewards for getting past the large hordes. In fact, you can't. This is game that left me wanting to explore every nook and cranny because I felt like there could be secrets everywhere. As such, I was very curious to see if I could immediately dash through the iron gate I opened that let the zombies inside to get to a new map, and unfortunately it just ends up getting you killed. The same applies to the blocked door on the street that only opens when the zombies begin to come in. The secrets themselves are rather nice though. I won't spoil them here, but let's just say that there's a really cool bonus room and also a hidden boss to find.

And of course, it would be impossible to talk about this game without mentioning the gorgeous pixel art. The only thing I'm not super obssessed over in this game is probably the battler sprites for the zombies, but that largely boils down to personal preference. Everything else in this game looks absolutely stellar and it's probably one of the best looking rpg maker games to be added to the site this year (I'm kinda reluctanct to say "released" this year). A lot of small visual details accompany the pixel art very nicely as well, from the animations to being able to see the baseball bat as your character carries it.

There isn't much of a story here, but it's probably for the better as it allows the game to be less linear and focus on its other aspects instead. The most dialogue you will get is when you meet the two other survivors, which I think was just enough.


He's never gonna dance again. Guilty feet have got no rhytm.


It's also a very well polished game which was pretty nice to see for a game that's this non-linear. The only aspect that felt a little buggy was the flashlight, which didn't always to the character turning around, sometimes forcing me to press the button twice while turning to make the flashlight turn around with me. Other than that, though, this is about as professional as you can get with an rpg maker game and it genuinely helped this game a lot.

I know I didn't have as much to say about this game as I usually do with a lot of others, but I can assure you this is probably going to be among the best I've played this year, and I do highly recommend it. I give this game four area 51 raids out of five.

Posts

Pages: 1
Area 51 ratings? Nice haha
Yes I agree with everything you say actually. The intro does get tedious after a while. I would've fixed it, but I was so fatigued of this project even after all those years. It was either that or still collecting dust on my pc lol...

As for the food thing, when I started the project I wanted it being a more important part of the gameplay but.. I was minded to finish the project with a deadline and 'Food' ended up being a half-baked mechanic.

But wow, you pushed through the iron gate and the horde?? I.. didn't think it was possible. Interesting xD

I never expected so detailed reviews. I'm honored, thank you!
Frogge
I wanna marry ALL the boys!! And Donna is a meanc
18536
author=Smokingspoon
Area 51 ratings? Nice haha
Yes I agree with everything you say actually. The intro does get tedious after a while. I would've fixed it, but I was so fatigued of this project even after all those years. It was either that or still collecting dust on my pc lol...


I'll take it! Better than collecting dust.

author=Smokingspoon
But wow, you pushed through the iron gate and the horde?? I.. didn't think it was possible. Interesting xD


I... tried. I died after a while and later realized while looking through game files that there's just a much larger horde back there. I did manage to go until I got beyond the gate and the player became invisible, though.

author=Smokingspoon
I never expected so detailed reviews. I'm honored, thank you!


Thank you for releasing the game! It was really fun :D
Pages: 1