Life of Delta PC Review

The world has gone amock, the conflict between robots and organics has risen to the point where robots are being ripped to pieces, left, right and center and what do you do when your only friend has been taken from you? Life of Delta is a simple yet impactful puzzle game developed by Airo Games and published by Daedalic Entertainment.

Daedalic Entertainment is no stranger to publishing simple yet excellent indie titles. They are the publisher for games such as Inkulnati and Children of Silentown, which are two incredible games and Life of Delta will be going alongside them as this little puzzle game has more to it than meets the eye. Life of Delta is Airo Games’ first game, so it's understandable that the small game studio would keep things rather simple, but so far, Life of Delta shows that the developer has excellent potential.

 

In Life of Delta we play through, well the title is rather self-explanatory. We play through the life of a little maintenance robot known as Delta. There is currently a conflict between organic organisms and robots, with many robots being treated less than dirt and just being decommissioned, such as the case with poor Delta, but all is not lost. Delta gets rescued by another service robot simply known as Joe. We aren't told much about Joe but both them and Delta do seem to have some sort of history together. Joe gets taken away to the Megacity to save Delta, the savior has become the saved and it is now up to Delta to rescue his friend and repay him for his kindness. The story in the game is incredibly sweet and heart-warming. The story isn't anything fancy, but the way the writers have handled it has made the story of Delta's little journey incredibly impactful and quite memorable.

Life of Delta is a truly charming game. The game itself doesn't really do anything different or unique, as initially the game appears to be your run of the mill puzzle game but looks are indeed deceiving. As mentioned earlier, while the game doesn't do anything revolutionary, what it does do, it does it incredibly well. Usually with most puzzle games, you wouldn't really go into much detail about the game's mechanics, as most of the time there's not much of a difference between game to game but Life of Delta is different.

Yes, you have your standard find clues, combine items and solve puzzles formula, but the way Life of Delta does it feels far more substantial. Yes, the puzzles are similar to others in the genre but Life of Delta spices them up and makes them feel fresh and different. A good example of this is the way it handles a connect-the-line puzzle. Instead of connecting one continuous line, the "line" is instead broken into four distinct sections that you need to complete in the correct order before you can move on to the next section.

 

Life of Delta even handles winning and losing in a rather unusual way. You are never discouraged from trying again, and the game never mocks you or teases you or makes fun of you for losing. The game encourages you to try again through a trial-and-error method. If you make a mistake, simply just try again. Most of the time, there's hardly any need to worry about time limits or puzzles based on precision. Even when there are these types of puzzles, they are not even that stressful. Sometimes, the game just allows skipping certain puzzles entirely.

While having the ability to completely skip puzzles in a puzzle game seems a bit counterproductive and defeats the purpose of the game itself, it also just gives players to experience one of the game's biggest strengths, its story. If you wanted to play Life of Delta just for the story, then having the ability to skip particularly frustrating puzzles you now have the option to just skip them, rather than wasting hours trying to figure out a radio sequence. While this choice is unusual, it is definitely appreciated.

That's the thing with Life of Delta, the game is labeled as just a regular puzzle game but set in a Post-Apocalyptic setting and that's exactly what it is, but you can't help but feel as if there was more planned for our adorable copper based friend. Despite this, the game never tries to be something it's not, there aren't any fancy time-switch mechanics or huge moral decisions at every corner. The game knows what it is so it tries to succeed at it the best it can. Some may see this as a bad thing but to others this just means that the game is a short but well-rounded experience filled with many characters and moments you won't soon forget.

 

Speaking of characters, during your time playing through Life of Delta, you will encounter a large cast of many colorful characters all distinct from one another. Probably one of the most memorable characters you will encounter are the other robots. Each robot or rather each type of robot has their own unique design that reflects both the role that they were made for and what role they serve in terms of the game's narrative. That's not to say that these synthetic beings are defined by the role they were created for, no they are sentient beings and each has their own unique personality and this shows up in their designs. From a cigarette-smoking, cowboy hat-wearing drifter to a snarky potion maker that wears a long cloak and has a set of huge metallic antlers, each character is unique unto themselves and makes them feel far more alive despite their synthetic nature.

The main reason why these characters feel so distinct is because of the game's art style, which makes it feel like animated concept art. In concept art, one way to make things stand out and not get lost in their given environment is contrast, which is something the game is full of. The two main uses of said contrast are Color and Detail. The game used these two design choices to make characters stand out. As mentioned before, the robots are all their own unique designs, these often feature colorful paint jobs or bright lights, which contrast with their environments which are muted tones of blue, brown and gray.  These designs are also packed with detail, we can see each and every pipe, plate and piston on these characters, and this once again separates them from their environments, which use heavy detail sparingly and only uses it to point you in the direction of a character.

Another way that Life of Delta makes these characters feel unique is with the use of sound. You see, Delta isn't organic and most of the NPCs you encounter aren't either, so they don't communicate the same way an organic being would. Instead of speaking the dialogue between two inorganic characters is conveyed through a series of both artificial R2D2 styled beeps and boops, mixed with metallic chirps and whirrs. Somehow these robotic sounds also convey what a character's voice would sound like, a mother robot sounds deep, gentle and caring while a spider robot sounds raspy and ominous. These sounds once again make the characters sound unique from one and another and make them stand out from their organic counterparts.

 

However, that's not to say that Life of Delta is free of any flaws, as there are some rather notable ones. The game suffers from something that plagues many other 2D puzzle games and that clues for getting lost in their environment. This is something you will encounter quite often, particularly with small, easily missed items and the main reason for this is that the game doesn't make them stand out enough. Many of these items are needed to progress the story, yet for some odd reason, they are placed in areas where they can easily get lost, like a brown stick in some equally as brown dirt or a gray metal ball next to a just as gray metal safe.

Yes, this is supposed to make it difficult, but it makes it frustrating as you will be searching high and low for a stick you're going to jab into some poop. Another issue with the game is its length. You see, Life of Delta may be a simple yet impactful puzzle game, but the game isn't very long and you will most likely be able to complete the game in 3-5 hours. While this was most likely done to stop the game from dragging on, this does, however, leave you wanting more.

Life of Delta is a short and simple puzzle game but it is one fantastic experience. The game is packed with charming characters that feel unique from each other and lets you experience a story that is heartwarming and impactful, wrapped up neatly into a five hour long package.
 

Daman Shelley (@UndeadandTired)
Editor, NoobFeed