Video Game Review: Duskers - Anything But A Drone

Developer Misfits Attic
Publisher Misfits Attic
Distributor Misfits Attic
Where we got our copy Misfits Attic
Genre Survival Horror, Strategy
Game modes Single Player
Reviewed on PC

Available on MacOS, Linux

Sparrowhawk

Published May 18, 2016

Duskers is a rogue-like spaceship exploration and coding game. You flit from derelict spaceship to even more derelict spaceship to scavenge for parts. Being the clever drone programmer you are, you keep yourself safe by sending your mechanical drones out to do the heavy lifting. Through this, you get the fuel and parts you need to survive, and learn about what exactly left so many dead ships floating in this part of the galaxy. And what you begin to discover does not leave you with much confidence.

The game plays like the computer bits in 70s and 80s films: ancient mere vector line schematics of your drones and the ruined ships, bleeps and bloops as you navigate the console, and indeed a console command line in which you input the instructions for your drones. Thankfully, the game has an intelligent autocomplete function, saving you from typing “navigate” and “gather” in full over and over again. I was really impressed with the Alias command, allowing you to put in custom preset commands to get your drones to perform complex tasks with one word. You can also switch to a blue-print style overview of the derelict itself, allowing you to coordinate your drones from a distance.

This all combines to give a gritty and limited sense of the world around you, which is mirrored in the gameplay itself. The old ships occasionally bear bits of semi-corrupted logs that slowly begin to add up, revealing a terrifying universe filled with many different things that may have wiped out all the people who should be piloting these hulks. The tension is built not only through this, but also through the kinds of tech your drones have. Sometimes your visual feed from a drone, or heaven forbid your overview, cuts out and you’re left piecing things out with the rest of your abilities. Your ability to scan for enemies is also limited: the motion scanners can tell you if something is out there, but not what it is. And with the varied enemy types all having their own tells, the disempowering feeling of not knowing can become deadly very easily. The game pushes you to think strategically on your feet, to make clever use of your environment if you’re in danger.

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However, it might push you a little too hard. Starting out, I found the game to be utterly brutal. Dark Souls brutal. Tear my hair out brutal. I could barely clear two ships without catastrophically encountering angry red apex predatory things that left me droneless, fuelless, and restarting again. Eventually conceding that I was too much a scrub, I tinkered with the game’s quite comprehensive set of difficulty settings. These allow you to tone down the elements you find too difficult until you get the hang of things, like switching off random radiation, making your scrappy drone modules more robust to wear and tear, and increasing the amount of scrap to be found (among other options). This is a good move, as it allows players to work out the difficulty that they find most satisfying by working backwards from brutal to manageable.

I don’t think Duskers will be for everyone, and at the price it may be beyond taking a gamble for those not familiar with rogue-likes. But for the right player it will be an addictive experience. As I improved, I found the game to be extremely rewarding. Tricking enemies into empty rooms, or ejecting them into space, creates a great sense of relief. The tension in the game is also excellent, really capturing the quiet isolation of its inspiration, Alien . There are moments where I sat, counting seconds, until I was certain nothing was in the next room. And sometimes, as I went to move in, something would move on the other side of the door. It is a real thriller. The slow burning story, too, is revealed in tantalisingly scary details that slowly piece together as you explore. This is the only thing that survives the permadeaths and restarts – your databank of logs from previous forays out.

The key to success, as is often the case with procedural generation and rogue-likes, is a blend of good fortune and excellent thinking. One criticism I have is that the randomisation of drone starting utilities can be frustrating, as once or twice I started with no sensors of any kind. While you can craft them from scrap, it is a frustrating handicap that made me simply restart for a better line-up of utilities. However, that is a feature of procedural generation which is such a minor hindrance that it does not mar an otherwise tense and rewarding experience. While the standard difficulty will be off-putting for many players, once you’ve got the hang of the game it can be worked back to its brutal self for the masochistic players out there.

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I’m punching in a fairly complex sequence when something triggers a motion sensor in a room I know is empty. Immediately my heart is in my mouth. They’re coming through the vents. Fingers fly like a hacker in a movie where the director knows nothing about hacking, and I close all the doors before sending the swarm of things out the airlock. It all feels like something out of Alien, which, given the aims of Misfit Attic’s new game Duskers, is the perfect feeling. Duskers is a rogue-like spaceship exploration and coding game. You flit from derelict spaceship to even more derelict spaceship to scavenge for parts. Being the clever drone programmer you are, you keep yourself safe by sending your mechanical drones out to do the heavy lifting. Through this, you get the fuel and parts you need to survive, and learn about what exactly left so many dead ships floating in this part of the galaxy. And what you begin to discover does not leave you with much confidence. The game plays like the computer bits in 70s and 80s films: ancient mere vector line schematics of your drones and the ruined ships, bleeps and bloops as you navigate the console, and indeed a console command line in which you input the instructions for your drones. Thankfully, the game has an intelligent autocomplete function, saving you from typing “navigate” and “gather” in full over and over again. I was really impressed with the Alias command, allowing you to put in custom preset commands to get your drones to perform complex tasks with one word. You can also switch to a blue-print style overview of the derelict itself, allowing you to coordinate your drones from a distance. This all combines to give a gritty and limited sense of the world around you, which is mirrored in the gameplay itself. The old ships occasionally bear bits of semi-corrupted logs that slowly begin to add up, revealing a terrifying universe filled with many different things that may have wiped out all the people who should be piloting these hulks. The tension is built not only through this, but also through the kinds of tech your drones have. Sometimes your visual feed from a drone, or heaven forbid your overview, cuts out and you’re left piecing things out with the rest of your abilities. Your ability to scan for enemies is also limited: the motion scanners can tell you if something is out there, but not what it is. And with the varied enemy types all having their own tells, the disempowering feeling of not knowing can become deadly very easily. The game pushes you to think strategically on your feet, to make clever use of your environment if you’re in danger. However, it might push you a little too hard. Starting out, I found the game to be utterly brutal. Dark Souls brutal. Tear my hair out brutal. I could barely clear two ships without catastrophically encountering angry red apex predatory things…

Video Game Review: Duskers – Anything But A Drone

2016-05-18

Sparrowhawk

Frantic and fantastic

Total - 8

80 8

Like a xenomorph, Duskers is both frightening and fascinating. The mix of rogue-like dungeoncrawling and drone programming is satisfying and addictive, and the game's graphics and atmosphere combine to create palpable tension. While the game's difficulty may be off-putting to some - especially at the price - the challenge is well worth a try!