Once again, Joel from Vinesauce showed me something awesome. This time, I happened to walk into the middle of his youtube video where he was playing this game. I really did not understand what I was watching, but for a few minutes, I knew I was going to have to check this one out. It was just too weird not to give it a play myself. Sadly, unlike the last game he introduced me to, this was not an amazing experience, but it was definitely interesting, and a game I'm glad I took some time with.
Story: You were never supposed to be here. No one was. For here is a place between worlds where life as we understand it can never survive… but that does not mean you are truly alone.
And this really is about all the story this game has. In true Lovecraftian fashion, the unspeakable and unfathomable reside here, but little if anything is ever actually explained. As such, you will have to settle for scraps as you experience this otherworldly place, handed to you by a disembodied voice that does nothing but try to remind you of how hopeless your situation is.
5/10
Graphics: Whenever he talks about Doom 3, Max is known for nicknaming it “can’t see shit, captain” for how much detail is hidden in the dark. I believe with this game we have found one to earn the name even better.
You will play this game from a first person perspective as you fall through many layers of the void, each with it’s own inhabitants of various size and shape as well as unique layouts along the way. Unfortunately, there are many times where you will not be able to see these as the void itself exudes a darkness, reducing it to mere shadows you have to watch and pick out both what might be there that is cool as well as what might kill you if you get too close and it touches you. Rather the only way to ensure a clear view is to phase temporarily, but even this trades the haze for inverted colors.
But on those moments when you do get to see clearly, this game offers one hell of a view. Ruines float by without gravity to hold them in place, runes pulse bright colors on the edge of your view, and creatures made of floating geometry swim by in the chaos with varying behavioral patterns. It is really an interesting sight to see… again, when you are allowed.
7/10
Sound: This is not a game that you can expect to have a lot of sound to it. In fact, there really is only a few sounds for the various monsters, a single yell from you when you get killed, and “the voice.”
The voice is a disembodied presence that is the only thing actively aware of you being in the void among all the beasts, and it makes it perfectly clear from the beginning, you do not belong in this place in a deep throaty voice, suggesting some mass to it wherever it’s coming from.
Other then that, there is some light orchestral work for music, but not really much. And that may be for the best, as this game was not meant to leave with much familiar.
7/10
Gameplay: At it’s core, Euclidean is a very simple game. You begin the game by making sure the settings are the way you want them by looking at the telescope anc clicking on it. Then when you are ready, staring up at the moon will cause it to turn, float towards you, and exude black substances that will take you out of the normal universe and to that which the game has in mind.
From this point on, you can look around freely, but aside from that, you will have standard move keys to guide your momentum as you float ever downward and a button to shift to both give you a better more tactical look at what's around you and make you invulnerable while it lasts. Once it drains out, you will have to wait for your form to glow green instead of red again before you get another use out of it.
The objective from this point on is to dodge everything moving around as this downward motion continues until you reach the bottom of each level, at which point you want to land on one of the white pearl-like orbs which will then end the level, teleporting you to the next one. If you touch any creature, you die on the spot and have to restart your current level, where as other objects will either break on contact or drain you of your phasing ability. This usually won’t bother you, however, as each level is both really short and built on pattern recognition. A successful “fall” should only take a few minutes for any given level.
And this proves to be the biggest issue this game has. With the levels being so short and only 9 of them in the game, someone who knows what they are doing will breeze by in 40 minutes or less. If you expect something to keep you occupied for more then a sitting or two, you are in the wrong place… just as wrong as if you expected anything beyond very simple gameplay.
6/10
Bugs: I completed this game in just under one hour, but I didn’t see any issues in the game itself. In fact the only bug I could find is that even as I type this, the achievements in Steam have yet to unlock.
Overall: This is another game I honestly have a hard time recommending to many people. It’s insanely simplistic in gameplay, so hard-core gamers looking to exercise a trigger finger will be very disappointed. On the other hand the theme of foreboding and reacting to things obscured till they are almost on top of you will be common, meaning someone coming in to relax and look at the weird shit will probably not be happy either. But if you are interested in a horror game which will literally keep you in the dark about the unknown about you until it’s right on top of you, and either have small intervals of time or don’t mind a game you can legitimately finish within an hour, you might have some fun with this. And at the launch price of $5, you won’t feel ripped off.
Score:
6/10
Source’s Listed System Requirements:
- Windows XP
- 2ghz processor
- 2 GB RAM
- Any card that supports Shader Model 3.0 (so basically any card from 2005/2006 should work)
- 500 MB hard drive space
System Specs:
- AMD Phenom II 6X 1100T (6 core) processor running at 3.3 Ghz
- 8 GB RAM
- NVidia Geforce 760 GTX with 2GB VRAM
- Windows 10
Source: Steam
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