One of the titles that will be resubmitted at the Steam Game festival of February is Vesper, an indie game from very promising artistic sector, coming this year on PC and in development at the Cordens Interactive. The public demo present on the platform of Valve since July 2020, it has recently undergone some adjustments and changes to the game mechanics that change its balance. This therefore seemed to us a perfect opportunity to take back the demo and tell you about our impressions of this inspired indie.
A car in a car graveyard
Vesper takes us into a world post apocalyptic cyber futuristic, where any such trace human it seems to have apparently volatilized and what remains of the human legacy are only the smoking carcasses of combat robots destroyed in a great war. The protagonist of the story will be a anonymous android that in his wandering through the lands of a lost world, he will often find himself in front of what remains of man's creations, monsters made of metal. Enemies such as, for example, the terrible mechanical bloodhounds and metal sentries who will hunt down our android and charge it as soon as it is sighted, as in the execution of an ancient death protocol. Despite the Vesper storyline still being sketched in this test version, however, we were able to appreciate the care of developers in structuring a well-defined setting and although the narrative premises are somewhat canonical in science fiction literature, they still seem to exist interesting ideas on the events presented.
On the side of the gameplay, Vesper is a game difficult to categorize into one specific genus, but it is possible to create parallels with other similar titles. In fact, the production is reminiscent in some ways Limbo, or other works such as The swapper, for the style used, the puzzles and the presence of mechanics from platformer; yet, despite everything, the game manages to find a certain streak of originality. In fact, the user-controlled android will be very fragile and ineffectively armed to defend against the threats that populate the game world. The only possible offensive action will therefore be to channel the energy collected from light sources into a sort of ray rifle and use it forhacking of robotic enemies, with the aim of take some il control for a short period. In this state it is possible to use otherwise inaccessible devices and possibly also activate self-destruction of the controlled hostile.
However, the already mentioned opponents that we will face will be a lot better equipped, More veloci and terribly stronger of the protagonist and this means that a direct approach will be tantamount to suicide. The use therefore of darkness and of Stealth mechanics they will be essential for survival. While we will face the hostiles we will also have to resolve some puzzles, not too complex in structure but which will instead require a certain amount of quickness e timing in resolution. In particular, we want to point out that some of these secondary puzzles, useful for discovering additional elements of the story, are particularly brutal e difficult not so much for the study of the actions to be carried out, as already said before, but rather for the need for aexecution quick e accurate to the commands in time windows extremely limited, on pain of a quick and painful death for our character with consequent frustration. The game, in fact, expects certain sections to come countless repeated times for the correct completion of a level part, even if some of these puzzles were simplified in the latest patch.
Vesper's artistic sector is of considerable value
Despite the difficulty in balancing some sections of the game, the components that more shines in the trial version of Vesper it is definitely the artistic sector. In fact, walking through meadows with the background of a placid moon and then being hit by the spectacle of total destruction and the mechanical corpses of a war for survival, managed to create in us a sort of feeling of amazement and wonder due to the strong contrast. . As for the overall style, the work shows off drawings with simple strokes, clean colors and with outlined shapes e precise, all to create an atmosphere perfectly fitting with the events narrated, full of mystery e drama. This is accompanied by a discreet ambient sound, which with the constant metallic noises of the robot factories in perennial production contrasted with the silence and stillness of the night manages to amplify the identification with the events of the anonymous android.
In conclusion, Vesper is a title from good potential, which might seem unoriginal at first glance, perhaps due to the mechanics similar to other titles or the post-apocalyptic context, taken with both hands by science fiction books. However, the game manages to impress for its realization thanks to a good artistic sector and for some stealth mechanics which combine in an interesting way with the puzzles and platforming sections. Despite some small bugs and some frustrating and difficult sections, we believe that the first work of Cordens Interactive still deserves the right attention pending the release of the official version.
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