Developer: The Paper Robot
Publisher: Clickteam
Platform: PC (Steam Early Access)
Room13 – Preview
Room13, developed by The Paper Robot, is a dark and twisted action-packed shooter-styled hack ‘n slash platformer that is currently on Steam as an Early Access Game. This indie title can be compared to the twisted tales of The Binding of Isaac, even the gameplay experience feels similar but visually the game resembles the violent graphics of Sin City. The combination of it all results into a stunning gruesome game that provides difficult challenges to keep you on your toes for sure.
You wake up in an empty room, a dark place with stairs leading to nowhere in particular. With no recollection of anything that had happened previously to waking up in this dank place, confusion grows. Your face hurts as you frown, only to deepen the frown. Hands gently touches the edges, fingers gliding over skin that was once smooth but now stitched up with staples. Blood trickles, leaving a puddle of pulsing red liquid. A sound breaks through the silence, followed by even more eerily hungry moans. In the far distance you see a gun and your instincts kick in. Quickly you grab it, only to see a horde of zombies closing in on you. You aim and fire. A small explosion and suddenly, you feel hungry yourself. While this is not the official narrative of the game, you may catch my drift anyhow.
Visually the game features brilliant and outstanding cartoon-like graphics, similar to the ones you can find in The Binding of Isaac. Additionally, the game offers the same violent graphical features from Sin City of black and white, spiced up with deep dark red. Each visual aspect described is great on its own but the combination of it truly excels and fits perfectly with the zombie-theme the game has going for it.
There is not much of a soundtrack in the game. Most of the ambiance sound is some eerie waving sound that could have come directly from a B-roll horror film but since your focus will be on surviving the relentless hordes of zombies, you won’t be able to pay much attention to the lacking soundtrack anyway. The munching-sounds of the zombies and the blasting of your gun is quite clear however so it all adds up to the overall creepiness the game wants to emit. Luckily there are hundreds of possible weapon configurations and most of them do make the gun sound different, adding some variety in the popping sounds.
Room13 is a dark and twisted zombie-filled action-packed shooter styled hack ‘n slash platformer that features gameplay experience similar to The Binding of Isaac. It’s fast and unforgiving. The game can be played with a keyboard as well as a controller. After having tested both, I must say that the controller feels more natural but this may be a personal opinion.
You begin the game being trapped in a room with several staircases leading to nowhere but a closed door. Zombies can come from any side of the room, from the left, the right and even from above and below so being careful is advised. At first, you’ll be armed with a basic handgun, which you can upgrade in-between “rounds” and some grenades.
Shooting the zombies is simple as a single bullet is effective for their demise but it does not make it any less hard. Your life is sparse and you will need to run around, picking up their remains – or as the game calls it, their gibs. After having gathered enough gibs, a battery will drop which you will need to pick up. After having successfully picked up three batteries, the zombie-invasion will fade and the closed door from before will open.
This is your in-between phase where you can upgrade your handgun to a more powerful tool. Each in-between phase will drop boxes, which can contain epic upgrades for your weapon such as a Stock to shoot faster. Certain boxes can be empty, while others can “summon” a more powerful zombie-fie. Since life is still sparse in the next levels, the firepower or fire rate won’t matter much if you run out of ammo. You can pick up ammo and health packs that drop but the horde will be chasing you wherever you may go and they’re a hell of a lot faster than the zombies we’ve seen in The Walking Dead.
Once you’ve gone through the boxes in the in-between phase, you can choose to step through the door which will lead you to a new room, or you can choose to stay. Either way, both options will increase in difficulty as each room has its own unique killtrap which will randomly activate in any of the rounds. The killtrap can hurt both you as well as the zombies so you may use to it your advantage as long as you’re aware of the dangers lurking. Surviving a round with the killtrap activated will unlock a new room, adding it to the list of possible starting rooms for your next game. There are thirteen rooms in total in the game, which may seem like a small number but since the game is unforgiving, you’ll need tons of replays to get through them all.
Conclusion
Room13 is a dark and unforgiving platformer that combines the hack ‘n slash deadliness with effective gun power. The game is addictive, even though you mey replay it over and over without much success at first, you’ll continue to go back to it. The outstanding visuals, a combination of dark outlined cartoon style graphics with the violent black and white graphics with added red hues ala Sin City, is a blast to get lost in. While the overly-used zombie concept is present, it is spiced up with well-executed gameplay, offering plenty of action and challenges along the way.
Room13 - Preview,
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