Dr. Plague

DISCLAIMER: I bought this game myself and was not asked to, nor was I paid to, review this game here or to make the video review I'll put on the YT channel (Hyper Tension Films). I saw the guy (Pathiral) post on the Splinter Cell Subreddit this very morning, thought the game looked neat, wishlisted it, and was shocked that it was coming out today. Clever marketing, Pathiral, you sumbitch you. Anyway, I just finished Dr. Plague. It's a combination of INSIDE, LIMBO, Splinter Cell, and even a bit of Dishonored, what with the general plague theme. PROS: -Clever use of 2.5D perspective with some challenging stealth sections. I LOVE STEALTH, so I was all about it. This includes whistling like my boy, Sam Fisher. -Good progression of abilities that slowly compound atop one another as you combine them in various segments. -Lovely music married with some sweeping countryside vistas made for a few stirring moments. -Plague Doc design is a cool blend of Garrett and Sam Fisher. Simple, minimal, but sleek. -Hey, 8 bucks. Could make a great little one-off game for streamers. I almost streamed it myself, but decided to make a proper video review instead. -No crashes or major bugs (THANK YOU, CHRIST). CONS: -There is a story...kind of. Do NOT play this game for a sweeping narrative. Stick with Disco Elysium or something for that. The ending was...well, the game concludes. -Some torches would pulse like a discotheque, even behind stone walls, and the plague effects look kind of generic and cheesy, especially when floating in a moving cloud. -Once, thankfully only once, there was a bit of finnicky platforming that had me semi-rage. Not terrible, but changing out of crow only to land and roll right into a guard was annoying. -Last segment wasn't horrible, per se, but definitely rough around the edges. I liked what he was going for, buuuuut it felt like controlling a Bethesda character in third person (ugh). FINAL VERDICT: Dr. Plague is absolutely worth buying and running through once. As I say, could be a great game to stream for a one-off session, and there is immense potential in this upcoming developer, Pathiral. If the guy can hone and polish his skills, there is gold here to be tapped. I wish him success and thank you for making a game I enjoyed. -Hyper Tension Johnny

Good atmosphere with some challenging encounters throughout, also loved the theme and music! Worth playing if you're into games like Far: Lone Sails, Limbo, or anything involving a bit of sneaking around!

This game is frustrating. Being seen by enemies off the screen is annoying. Timing enemies when they are off the screen is not fun. The game is interesting, but when you die 10 times because you have to time not being seen by an enemy that is off the screen and you can't see where they are looking is not fun. The stealth mechanics are weird. You can crouch up to an enemy and not be seen but you can also be prone and behind cover and be seen because you are an inch beyond the end.. It doesn't always make sense. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. It's not a bad game but it is frustrating.

Short but atmospheric stealth platformer where you play as a plague doctor sneaking through a dying world to deliver a cure, offering fun gameplay, striking visuals, and a haunting journey that leaves you wanting more. This game throws you right into the thick of things with only a few lines of background. The world isn’t a pretty place — it’s been devastated by a plague. The land feels empty, the people are gone, and if that wasn’t enough, a ruthless order of knights is using the chaos to wipe out all resistance and take control. But there’s a glimmer of hope. You play as a plague doctor who’s discovered a cure. However, to heal the land, you’ll need to administer it at the source of the infection — a place heavily guarded by knights. Since you aren’t a fighter, your only option is stealth, slipping past enemies undetected. Gameplay follows the classic adventure platformer formula: move in one direction, dodge enemies, solve environmental puzzles, and soak in the atmosphere. Much of the story is left for you to piece together through the visuals and surroundings. But unlike many games, there’s no confusion about your purpose: you know exactly who you are and what you need to do. Visually, the game is a great. The palette is muted and gray, yet the backgrounds are filled with grim, fascinating details. Spanning four chapters, the journey mostly leads through desolate countryside, abandoned cottages, hanging corpses, and the occasional ruined city or enemy camp. Each chapter feels heavier than the last, as lush landscapes steadily give way to barren deserts. Controls are simple and. You'll mainly move left and right, using the up button to jump or climb. Interacting with objects, like switches, is easy too — you just get close enough for a small circle indicator to pop up. Stealth is what the game is all about. By pressing down, you crouch and hide behind objects like barrels and walls. If danger is nearby, a heartbeat sound warns you to stay hidden. Later, you unlock the ability to "play dead" by double-tapping crouch — but it only works if there are actual bodies around you. Movement is on a single plane, so enemies facing your direction will spot you instantly. To counter this, you can vault over low covers, shifting the camera and your position to the other side. It’s a cool mechanic, but it doesn’t guarantee safety — enemies out of your view can still see you if you’re not careful. Aside from a filling eye icon when you're seen, the game offers no obvious visual cues. You’ll have to watch enemy head movements closely, which can be tricky — especially with enemies in the distance. Sound plays a big role too. Enemies have sharp hearing, so dropping out of stealth will bring them running. But you can turn this to your advantage by whistling, luring enemies away so you can slip past or vault to safety. Since enemies can’t climb, they have to go around obstacles, buying you precious seconds. Puzzles are minor and mainly involve flipping switches. However, there are some frustrating moments where traps and enemies appear without warning, forcing a trial-and-error approach. Thankfully, generous checkpoints keep the setbacks from becoming too annoying. Enemy variety is thin, with just two types: knights and archers. While their animations are well-done, it would’ve been nice to see more diversity. In Chapter 3, you gain a supernatural ability to help evade them, but the real danger still lies with the plague itself, represented by swarms of yellow, red, and purple fireflies. Yellow zones allow you 10 seconds to escape, red ones kill instantly, and purple negate your supernatural ability. Overall, this is a very cool, atmospheric game that leaves you wanting more. The biggest complaint lies in some of the later stealth sections, where tight timing becomes frustrating, relying on second-counting to survive. Fortunately, the game wraps up before it gets too annoying. It only takes a few hours to finish, and there are no secrets or achievements to hunt down.

I absolutely loved this little game! Very atmospheric and pretty challenging. I liked how it gradually added obstacles and gave you many options for enemy evasion. Fantastic stealth! There was not much of a story but even so, I felt extremely invested for some reason. Definitely will play again!

Even though this game does not have much in the way of mechanics, story or voice acting, its atmosphere and stealth gameplay is worth picking up the title. You'll find yourself getting immersed in the trials of the main character trying to rescue his land.

The game was really fun! I'm normally not a big fan of stealth games but I enjoyed the gameplay and how some things got implemented into the game. The moveset mostly feels smooth and good. I may have cursed the developer a few times while I died but most of the time the AI detection is very good and doesn't find you through 5 walls.

Had this on my wishlist for a few days and decided to give it a shot when I saw there was an introductory offer. I've played many stealth games over the years, but I have less of a history with 2.5D stealth games in particular. What instantly drew me to this game was the tone and art direction, which I find highly reminiscent of games such as A Plague Tale, and how it incorporates classic stealth mechanics like going prone and whistling. It's simple, but presents a good challenge and forces you to utilize all of the tools at your disposal to progress through the levels, while also throwing a few puzzles at you. Worth playing if you enjoy stealth games.

It's very old-school 2.5D stealth gameplay. It's unforgiving instant-fail, which is often frustrating. The checkpoints usually aren't too far back, but that often still feels too far when you're just trying to figure out how far an enemy can see you from or when there is an off-camera enemy that you run into. The controls are simple. I liked the stealth puzzles, but sometimes there are non-stealth puzzles which I don't think really fit. I stopped midway through chapter three because of a puzzle that I couldn't figure out. The style of this game and the atmosphere of a ruined world is beautiful, along with the music. Every few minutes there'll be a part where you're just running along a bleak landscape with, for example, a flock of crows flying, a ruined castle in the background, and haunting violin music; those were my most enjoyable times.

A pleasantly brief exploration of interesting and well-used game mechanics with a well-crafted atmosphere, but not much in the way of story or context. As a disclaimer, I must warn that I did not end up finishing the game, although I'd guess I was in the later half of chapter 3 when I stopped. Everything I say should be taken with a grain of salt. I went into [i]Dr. Plague[/i] blind, so my first surprise was to find the stealth feels a lot more like a series of puzzles. I actually quite like this approach, and while none of the mechanics introduced are groundbreaking, they're all pretty well-used and make for some interesting, bite-sized challenges to get through. I didn't find any of them exceptionally difficult, but getting through them does still feel pretty satisfying. I only have two real gripes with the stealth: first, I found the whistling mechanic could be a bit inconsistent and sometimes couldn't tell whether a guard would hear me or not until after I had tried it, but it's a small problem and I did get used to it after a while. The other issue I have, and the much larger one at that, is that it can be hard to predict enemies that are offscreen. I think the biggest offender for this issue I encountered was in chapter 2 when I passed through a gate and immediately ran into a guard who I couldn't see until after I had already entered eyeshot. Audio cues do help to determine if someone is within range, but sometimes it's vital to know what direction a guard is facing, and if the field of view is too small to permit that, it feels unfair to fail because of it. On a side note related to audio cues, I really wish the guards had more interesting audio cues - the fact that none of them talk feels like a missed opportunity to show personality as a lot of other stealth games do. However, I get the feeling this is the result of budget constraints more than anything, and if that's the case I can forgive that. The rest of the gameplay is divided into more traditional puzzles and platformer sections. I have no problem with their inclusion, but I really wish they coincided with the stealth gameplay more - it feels like they exist independently of it and only overlap on occasion, which makes for a less unified gameplay experience, and ultimately all of them are a lot easier than the stealth sections, and far more forgettable. Still, I must restate that the gameplay [i]is[/i] quite good for what it is. While it's not doing anything tremendously new, it's done very well, and I think above other things it takes us to some pretty interesting environments. [i]Dr. Plague[/i] has only a small number of environments, but in my opinion they're where the game's effort is on its most overt display. Combined with the delightfully gloomy music, the game successfully create a very moody atmosphere of loneliness and desolation as we explore these wonderfully ruinous environments. I think that if I were to suggest one thing, it would be a little more variety in colour - although the current palette succeeds masterfully in creating a very grim environment, the various locations sometimes tend to feel repetitive because they all share the same colour scheme, even when in reality there's a pretty decent amount of variety on display. The environments also have some attempts to show story cues through background details, which in my opinion is a step in the right direction, but I don't think it's explored with as much depth as it could have been. I really like that the game gives us pretty minimal context and attempts to show information through environments rather than walls of text or cutscenes, but I was really hoping it would use the environments and gameplay to reveal information about the surrounding world, the events that brought it to where it is now and our protagonist. Perhaps I just missed something along the way, but with no characters established enough to gain my investment and very little information about the surrounding area, I eventually just stopped playing because everything seemed to suggest there wasn't much of a world left to save. All in all, I do feel a little bad for how scathing this review probably reads, because the game clearly comes from a place of passion. There's plenty of creativity on display, and I think every major problem I have with it seems like the result of either limited experience or budget, both of which I find to be forgivable. With all of its flaws in mind, I recommend [i]Dr. Plague[/i], mostly on account of its rock solid gameplay and its beautifully haunting atmosphere. It may not necessarily be the right game for me, but I'd argue it's still worth a look, and I really hope to see more from this developer soon.