Developer: Daedalic Entertainment, Airo Games
Publisher: Daedalic Entertainment
Platform: PC, Switch, PS5, Xbox Series X/S
Tested on: PS5
Life of Delta – Review
Point-and-click adventure games belong to a genre that is slowly dying out. Gone are the days when these used to be the most beloved games, with titles like Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle considered some of the greatest of all time. But now developer Daedalic Entertainment is here to save the genre from extinction with their newest game, Life of Delta. This post-apocalyptic adventure focuses on exploration and solving puzzles, giving a nostalgic touch to this experience.
Story
In Life of Delta, you take on the role of the titular robot, a small service bot who was saved from destruction. Now he lives together with the friend who saved him in the outback of a post-apocalyptic desert, living an easy life until his friend suddenly gets abducted by soldiers. Now it’s Delta’s quest to reach the big city and free his friend, helping other robots along the way. This involves a lot of smart thinking and puzzle-solving since he isn’t the strongest of robots, and you’ll have to find unconventional solutions to many problems on his quest.
Overall, this is a pretty good story that doesn’t do anything special. Delta is a classic do-gooder who sees the best in people and wants to help everyone in need. The other characters in the story fall into your classic stereotypes, like an angry brute or mysterious merchant, which fits the game well since it’s short and doesn’t focus on any character or location for too long. This makes the journey feel like it’s going somewhere and keeps you entertained. It won’t however stick with you with any memorable moments or exceptional characters.
Graphics
Life of Delta has a pretty nice look. The characters and locations are well-designed and show a lot of personality. From the rusted robots in the junkyards to the reptile-like mutants in the neon city, every new section of the game has a distinct look and feels right at home in the world. The animations on the other hand can be a bit choppy, but this does make it feel like an old-school point-and-click adventure, so this does add to the overall atmosphere of the game.
Sound
The atmosphere is an important factor in this type of game. The sound design helps bring you into the world and it allows you to explore the post-apocalyptic desert with a feeling of mystery. This is where Life of Delta does a great job. All of the tracks you will hear in the background are subtle, yet atmospheric. They really fit the scenes that are playing out in front of you and have a ton of variety. The same can be said for the dialogue sections of the game. Like in many other experiences that focus on a world full of robots, the characters don’t speak any known language but communicate through a collection of mechanical sounds. Each of them has its own sound that fits the character well, showing that the developers cared about giving them their personality.
Gameplay
Life of Delta is a point-and-click adventure game that is inspired by the classics of the genre. Throughout this short experience, you will be exploring a post-apocalyptic world, solving environmental puzzles, and finding the right items for the right situations. Almost all of this is done by using a cursor to click on the thing(s) you want to interact with, along with some quality-of-life buttons to smoothen out the experience.
The gameplay loop in Life of Delta is a pretty simple one. You enter a new location where you are presented with a problem that needs to be solved in order to move on. This can range from a prison guard standing in your way or needing to fix a broken aircraft. The problems you face can vary quite a lot but the way to get through them always consists of interaction with the correct pieces of the environment. Each location has these spots of interest that can be interacted with, like picking up items or activating switches. This is where the fun of the game is, seeing what you have at your disposal and solving environmental puzzles in interesting ways. Along with these also come a bunch of classical puzzles that are very broad in variety and offer a ton of interesting concepts. None of these puzzle sections are too difficult like some older games would have you stuck on the same part for hours, but they do offer a fun challenge at times.
While the game is a ton of fun, some technical problems can drag the experience down. A point-and-click adventure game is right at home on PC where you have access to a mouse for precise controls, but playing the game on console can feel a bit sluggish. Moving the marker to a specific location can be a bit hard with a joystick, especially when there are some points of interest close to each other. There is a function that fixes this issue, with a button that lets you toggle between the options, but the problem is that this doesn’t work all of the time. Along come also some issues that you have to press on some items multiple times before the action registers. All of these aren’t game-breaking issues but they can sour the experience at points.
Conclusion
Life of Delta presents a fun point-and-click adventure game that feels like an experience made for fans of the genre. The classical gameplay and puzzles are fun and the presentation is well executed. There aren’t any new things the game tries to do for the genre, which can make the handful of hours you spend with the game feel pretty unoriginal if you’re looking for something new. Sadly, a few technical issues do detract from the overall fun to be had.
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