Sludge Life (2020)

• Graphics:

The main reason I originally got this game was the cool appearing 90s cartoon art style with the VHS effect. The 90s vibe goes further with the crazy designs of the characters and world reminiscent of 90s cartoons on cartoon networks of the time like ren and stimpy as well as cow and chicken! So this was a massive selling point of the game and from my opinion no negative to it!

• Gameplay:

Generally I am not much of an achievement hunter but as the main collection item had multiple items to help you find it was not that bad. Though one of the items that help you did not have a description how to use them, which if I knew earlier could have saved a lot of time but not a huge issue as the game is only 2-4 hours long. As for the other things to collect they are all fine as they are placed in pretty obvious places where players will travel though they can be hard to distinguish from the surroundings. Except for the slugs where I cannot imagine finding some naturally unless you want to painstakingly scour every inch of the map, so this one I searched for a bit of help.

More on the items I found them all to be cool additions to the already cool movement that allowed for situational climbing on walls. Like the glider was cool to help transverse the map along with the teleporters and the winder thing to tp back set positions made late game more enjoyable after you already experience the map. Though these items being essential for some of the main collectables did seem a bit silly especially if they are annoyingly in view and just out of reach.

Also the enemies were practically useless and tbh wished they were more active to make the game a tad harder. The game also let you smoke, drink, and collect little apps for your tablet option thing which was a cool addition.

• Story:

The game had 3 endings two of which you didn't even need to collect all of the main collectables which I thought was cool. The good ending use the rewinding item to get through a security door which I thought was an easy enough thing to figure out. And this lead to a helicopter that auto piloted around the island then escaped which was a nice and fulfilling ending. For the bad ending it was not easy to figure out using a laptop to block a laser to you pop into existence when accessing the menu. This leads you to a nuke that you can set off which will show with windows 96 kind of error msgs and kick you off the game. To which when you try to get back on you get scared thinking the game will reset your progress but it just jebaits you that at that point was a but too far lol cause was freaking out a little.

For worldbuilding it was done ok in terms of narrative as it gave reasons for some of the logic of the world which allowed me to progress without much questioning to like the passive enemies. Though the best part of the world building was some of the wild scenes scattered around the world which made me very gladful for the camera to take pics amusingly.

SFX:

There were not a lot of different music options but the ones that were there were bops so for a short game it was perfect and fit the vibe of the game and its setting well. AS for other sound effects all of them were perfect for the game's vibe as well so no problems there.

Overall: 5.5/10

Even though the game's setting and graphics were really well done and interesting the game mechanics felt repetitive and sometimes were not intuitive in their function. Music was cool but not anything particularly amazing and the story was pretty much non-existent for some NPC interactions and a few short endings which was more interesting in a graphical sense. Making a pretty average game but nothing that remarkable

Sludge Life is a combat-free first-person collectathon platformer. You play as Ghost, a graffiti artist, trying to tag all 100 spots while exploring a retro-dystopian shipyard.

The game's aesthetics really nail the vibe it's going for, from the sludgy music to the low-poly models to the misaligned visual filter. I found the overall flatness a bit disorienting on a large monitor, so I recommend playing on a handheld like the Switch or Steam Deck.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of first-person platforming, and Sludge Life doesn't really change my mind... I still always find it awkward not knowing exactly where your character will land and losing visibility whenever you have to climb an incline or bound over a block. It gets a bit easier as you find items that enhance your means of wayfinding and traversal, but would I even need those enhancements if not for the perspective? Maybe, maybe not.

But the game is short and the platforming challenge is kept pretty modest, so I enjoyed myself over the 2+ hours it took to finish. Will be interesting to see what they change in the upcoming sequel.

In this game you walk around a weird world, talk to weird people and spray graffiti in pre-determined spots. Many of these spots are higher up, requiring you to find a path that often involves clunky 3D platforming (which i loathe).

It's nice to play something 'different' and the game has a neat atmosphere, but i really don't care for the actual gameplay. There doesn't seem to be much of a story either. It's just not for me.