Indie Corner: DESYNC

Ever wondered how DOOM would look like in the 80’s with the graphics of today? Well don’t wonder any longer because now we have DESYNC.

DESYNC is a 80’s themed first person shooter. The objective is to complete levels by shooting your way through them.  There is nothing really special about the game except the music and the theme. You are in a synthpop, vaporwave, new wave themed world with the accompanying music. I love new wave and synthpop so the music really picked me up.

The game really likes to play with the 80’s theme. The menu screens are vhs styled and it all has this “terminal look” to it. It also sometimes glitches a bit so it gives you a 3d vibe as well. This is nice but makes the menu hard to read because it is impossible to read stuff while they are in that glitching state.

The game is very minimalistic in its menus. It does not give you any explanation whatsoever and this is a reoccurring thing in the whole game.

That is my greatest concern. The game does not take the time to explain you things you need to know. You just start it up, walk around a bit until you find your objective. It is pretty obvious though. But still you don’t know anything about what you have to do or what weapons you have.

You can also collect all kinds of stuff. The only thing that got explained to me was that the red orbs are health and that is it. As a gamer, I knew when I got dollar shaped orbs that I probably could upgrade my things later on. But I try to look at my games from a rookie point of view. And when you are a rookie, you are going to have a bad time. I also collected shards which I truly don’t know anything about.

When you play for the first time, some of the characters are too strong. For instance I can run away but the moment I turn around, the enemies are there and they hit me. I have read that the developers really wanted to go for a “hardcore” gaming experience. And they succeeded actually. The game is really challenging. Only thing missing is a proper tutorial. I did not know how to play decently until I looked up some let’s plays from other people. You get some kind of introduction level, but I did not know anything about my weapons, abilities, stuff to pick up, that kind of stuff. Also the game does not have any controller support. Although the gaming industry mainly focuses on mouse and keyboard on fps games it would’ve been nice to see some controller support too.

So personally I think it is a good game. It is fun once you get into it. The music is really nice and just the general look of the game is really good. Although I don’t think this game is really special. There just is not much in this game that makes it different. Except for the music maybe. But it is a reoccurring trend that indie games get a vaporwave/’80s theme in their game. But I did enjoy playing it. I would like to also say that I would not buy it if I were an epileptic. The game is really flashy and has a lot of effects so it would not be very good for epileptic seizures.