[Review] Once Upon A Coma (Demo): "Surviving in the indie industry is very tough"

in #gaming7 years ago (edited)
This phrase touched my heart right after finishing the demo of this beautiful game. It was very short and I wanted more, because the suspense caught my curiosity, but when the developers left this message for us, the players, it made me want to immediately have the money to collaborate with the budget for the completion of the game.
 
I have never made a game, it is not that I have tried much to learn, but to build something -anything- is not easy at all. A game requires thinking about the design, and here we place from the conceptual design to the mechanical, and of course be able to raise this idea through programming and animation. Or at least that is what I have understood, drawing my conclusions by stages of preproduction, production, and postproduction. So there are many things to do and in indie studios there are very few people to do it. So it is a great job that must be assessed in each pixel, code, and narrative line.
 

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And I reflect so much on this, because definitely my impression by Once Upon A Coma has been very positive, which makes me appreciate the work of its developers. Very few games in these stages are concerned about offering the product with all the quality of what we expect to see when the game is finally released.

 
But we go to the argument of this game, before telling you everything else:
 
Pete is a child who awakens in what seems like a nightmare, finding himself in a place he does not remember and in which everyone speaks to him as if they knew him from a long time ago. There is no direction, there are no instructions, but all we know is that he was in a coma, and now that he has returned, the adults have disappeared and Lily, who apparently is her sister, has gone to look for them.


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That's right, this is an adventure in dark tones like Inside or Braid. Although I played it without knowing anything, I only saw the art on the cover and downloaded it immediately, in the middle of dialogues of characters (very like Undertale, por cierto) nd the emptiness that can be seen in that town, Let us know enough to not lose the curiosity of what this adventure of platform embarks us. However, I can not rule out the fact that the duration of the demo has not been enough to show us the most sinister side of this game and has cut it just when it seems that the real action will begin.
 

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From the beginning, I am surrounded by pleasant sensations for two things that should be as important as the story: the soundtrack and the graphics image. This wonderful musical setting may unleash a bit of the dark aspect that appears on the screen, but it is so relaxing and peaceful that invites you to explore until you meet your enemies. Magical and sweet piano tunes that catch you in this village of dream or, better said, of nightmares.
 

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Although its creator mentions in his Kickstarter publication that he has been inspired by The Legend of Zelda for the feeling of exploration in Once Upon A Coma, I can not pass up the resemblance to another successful indie industry game: Limbo, which has been an example to follow of many other games. As for art and for that search for a close relative who has been lost in a dark world.
 
Thomas Brush is not new in videogames development, and he already has a résumé in the indie circle with Pinstripe, a game that gave him 5 awards in 2016. But before this, about 8 years ago, he had already released Coma, as a Flash game very short and with the same plot that this new installment offers. The differences are clear when you play both, because this new version is a remake totally from 0.
 

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The characteristic of Thomas Brush, we could call his personal brand, is this aesthetic so careful and sinister that it seems to be taken from the universe of Tim Burton. So calm, sepia tones and a design of somewhat ghostly characters, makes us feel really trapped in a dream, in a deep coma (which reminds me of an animated series of worship ...).
 
In terms of gameplay, like all platform games we move towards the side of the screen, jump, and interact with our environment. Something that has delayed me at the beginning has been the lack of instructions; yes, we move with the arrows and interact with the space key, but it was impossible to guess that it was jumping on the "Z". On the other hand, Pete, our character in this adventure, has a fluid displacement, can jump very high and his attack is incredibly fast. In addition, it is necessary to highlight that the most particular and original in combat is that giant razor blade that you use as a weapon and is sharp enough to trim the grass, literally. What I found unnecessary is that at the beginning Pete already seems to have a sword in his belt, which we can not use until we find the Occam’s Razor, which justifies that design in the character.
 

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There is no life bar and, for the moment, in this demo our character does not suffer damage when attacked by those enemy spiders. Then the "combat" becomes less interesting, although the fluidity of the weapon could make it fun.
 

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Conclusion:

 
With Once Upon A Coma , Thomas Brush, who always claims to have dreamed of making video games, although surviving as an independent in any field of work is something hard and risky, teaches us that Persistence and Passion can achieve great results. From the design of characters, scenarios, narrative and music, you can notice the effort and affection in each landscape, there are no repetitive screens, there are no dialogues without relevance, everything has a reason and the important thing is not only to become a witness of the story, but that you get to care for it. You go from here to there with more questions than answers while you enjoy a beautiful soundtrack and the mystery that accompanies the atmosphere.

 

Once Upon A Coma is not a horror game, much less an action game, it is a mystery and psychological adventure, a journey through an intriguing story, but one that probably does not cause some emotion for the lack of challenge in combat. However, for those who enjoy an excellent narrative, I think this promises to be a shocking game in this regard and I will be looking forward to the full release.

 


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Where can you play Once Upon A Coma?

 
Just a few weeks ago I test the demo, and in the publication of money collection for its full release I could see that they still needed a lot to reach the goal. Now I have found the surprise that it has passed the budget requested, so with this great fundraising it is possible to see it soon in Steam . For the moment, if you liked it as it looks and you would like to try it, I leave you the link to the demo in GameJolt :  


 

REQUERIMENTSMY PC's SPECIFICATIONS
OS: Windows 7 or betterOperative System: Windows 10 Pro 64 bits
Processor: 1.7 GHz Dual Core CPUProcessor: Pentium® Dual-Core CPU E5300 @ 2.60Ghz (2 CPUs)
Memory: 2 GB RAMMemory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260, ATI Radeon 4870 HD, or an equivalent card with 512 MB VRAMGraphic Card: AMD Radeon HD 5450 (1GB VRAM)

 

Sources:

  • Data, Illustrations, Gifs and promotional banner, obtained through the publication in Kickstarter.
  • The requirements and updates can be found in Steam.
  • To be up to date with the dev blog, visit their profile in GameJolt.
  • Captures of the game on screen made by myself.😜
  • If you liked it, leave me a comment to motivate me to continue writing more posts like this and if you think this deserve it, you can also vote. I will be very grateful.❤️

    Pixel Art by @ernesrobin

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