You know what’s great?
Demos.
It seemed like demos were going extinct for a while there, but they’ve recently made a resurgence. I couldn’t say exactly why that is, but I’d hazard a guess that Steam’s wishlist feature has something to do with it. If you weren’t aware, the likelihood that a new game will appear on the front page of Steam is directly tied to the number of players that have the game on their wishlist. Having a demo available can help introduce your game to many potential players, which can bolster those wishlist numbers ahead of release.
I’m sure Valve’s introduction of Steam Next Fests also had something to do with it.
Regardless, one of the major benefits that I’ve enjoyed as a result of this recent surge in demos is the ability to preview games ahead of their release dates. This has been super useful because it’s given me a risk free way to try out a ton of games that I wasn’t confident I’d enjoy before I bought them. As a result, I’ve wasted far less time, and money on games that weren’t really a good fit for me.
And that finally brings us to what I wanted to talk about today: Demo Dive. I’ve been fairly good about sharing my thoughts on demos during Steam Next Fests, but there are far fewer times where I’ve managed to write about demos I play outside of this limited time period. I wanted to change that, so I’m going to try to make it a regular feature.
To get things started with our first dive, I wanted to cover Isle of Reveries.
I’m going to guess that the first thing most people will notice about Isle of Reveries is the same thing that caught my attention: the art-style. Yes, I know. Visuals are a terrible barometer to judge a game by. However, I’d almost argue that the art-style of Isle of Reveries will tell you everything you need to know about the game. Reveries wears its inspiration plainly, and both looks and plays like older The Legend of Zelda titles on the Gameboy.
Having said that, I don’t have any issue with taking heavy inspiration from another series, and I think Isle of Reveries beautifully recreates those chunky Gameboy sprites. Well, that’s a little untrue. The sprites look how I remember Gameboy games looking, but Reveries does the same thing as Shovel Knight. That is, the game presents a convincing illusion of how we remember games from that era, while being far more technologically advanced. Regardless, Isle of Reveries immediately hit me right in the nostalgia as I grew up playing some of the handheld games it lovingly pays homage to.
Isle of Reveries isn’t just a pretty face however: it also plays well. You’ll explore themed dungeons while solving a handful of different puzzles. The demo only featured one such dungeon, but I liked what I saw from it. There was a nice bit of mechanical consistency between the puzzles. What I mean is that later puzzles in the dungeon were able to build on things that players already learned from earlier puzzles, which gave the whole thing a clear through line, and difficulty curve. That’s a bit of a rarity in older games, so I appreciated Isle of Reveries’ application of modern design sensibilities in this regard.
It’d be remiss of me to not mention that Isle of Reveries also had a dungeon item in the first dungeon. I’m not sure if all the game’s dungeons will feature such items because the one in the demo seems like a mechanic that the entire game could build puzzles around. You’re granted the ability to copy any object, and create a duplicate of that object somewhere else. This ability isn’t limited to what room you’re in either – you’re able to copy things, and place them wherever you want. That opens up the door to an insane level of potential puzzle solving, and I’m eager to see exactly how this ability is utilized in the full release.
Before we close things out, I had one minor point of criticism: the combat is a little weak. I get the sense that it wasn’t really the focus, as Reveries has much stronger puzzle chops. Regardless, I would have appreciated it if there was a bit more hitstop, and invulnerability upon giving, or receiving hits. That’s entirely a personal preference though.
Either way, I think Isle of Reveries has a ton of potential from what is showcased in its demo. As already stated, I feel like this is a game where you’ll know if it’s for you entirely from looking at the art-style. I fall firmly within that camp though, and playing through the demo only helped to solidify that opinion.
If anything I’ve said here has piqued your interest, then you can play Isle of Reveries’ demo via Steam, or Itch.io. There is also a Kickstarter page if you’re interested in supporting the development of the game ahead of its full release, albeit, at the time of writing, the campaign hasn’t launched. Also, don’t forget to wishlist the game.
That’ll conclude our first Demo Dive. Thank you for reading, and I hope to see you in the next one. Until then, stay safe out there.
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Frostilyte Writes 