Pitch Black: A Dusklight Story - Episode One

As with any game of this type the first question is, can you play with your eye's shut? Yes you can, we may be on to a winner. This is an audiogame, no triple A graphics, but triple ear sounds instead, does that work? Controls are easy enough and other than the occasional wandering and wondering, not been too sure what is required, you can usually stumble to the next chime. Sound quality is good, as is the accompanying music They have gone for an eposodic approach, so hoping there will not be too long to wait between each one. Could it be improved? Well controller support would have been nice, but not a big issue. Achievements would be appreciated. Otherwise this is a great addition to a slowly growing collection of games that are visually impaired friendly.

I'm adamant that gaming is a visual medium, and thus, games that don't pass a specific minimum standard in terms of visual quality aren't worth a gamers time. Pitch Black: A Dusklight Story - Episode One has NO GRAPHICS. In fact for most gamers I probably wouldn't recommend this, but it's besides the point. So why am I giving a very rare thumbs up to a game that, at face value, fails every single test for a bleeding edge video game? Because this game is made for the visually impaired. You can play it with your eyes closed. You're given stereo auditory prompts and play the game by interacting with the narrative choices posed towards you using the arrow keys on your keyboard. While I am a harsh critic of games that don't meet basic, but rigorous standards, this game supersedes those requirements. It's an important game because it allows people who are almost completely denied the pastime of gaming to engage in it. I firmly believe that games must be made accessible to as many people as possible. This is why I'm critical of games with locked controls and limited customisability. These features are beyond "nice to have", they can make or break the ability to play the game for differently abled gamers. Explore a 3D world without vision. Make choices, fight, survive, explore. The game doesn't pull any punches, either. This isn't Hello Kitty Island Adventure, the plot is creepy and dark. I give this a hearty thumbs up. Gaming is meant for everyone.

Actually I feel bad about giving the game a thumbs down. The developers put a lot of effort into the game. The voice acting is great. However, I didn't like the game for two reasons: First, it is boring. You can do nothing but to move to the next source of sound. Second, I'm a sighted person and found the gameplay interesting but also struggled a lot of it. In the first section I was supposed to walk around and speak to everyone. I had no idea how many people there were or how to find them. Second section, there was the guard at the door. I think he was moving like from 5m away back to the door, trying to repair it? I guess I was supposed to sneak to the door when he wasn't there, but I couldn't find it. How does that even work? Am I invisible or something? Don't they have any light around where they are guarding? So I went into fight instead. The fight system was actually fun. I had some struggle with that at first, too, but I might enjoy it with some diversity in a longer game. Afterwards, in the third section the noises confused me. There were two sources of sound and I followed the wrong one and got stuck in some place far-far away on the map. I did not manage to make sense of the auditory clues. The brighter and darker pings just led me to walls. The new experience was interesting but I didn't really enjoy the game.

Purple Jam was kind enough to provide me a copy of this game, and I'm so glad they did! I wasn't sure what to expect, but I'm now invested in the worldbuilding, excellent binaural sound design, voice acting, and the innovative audio zoom mechanic! Can't wait for the rest of the series! I'd recommend this game to anyone who's a fan of audio games.

Very interesting concept well done, whole game is based around audio perception( which directions sounds come from) and an interesting kind of creepy at times story, set in what seems to be some sort of post apocalyptic future. looking forward to episode 2, would recommend highly!

Audiogames are becoming more than computer-spoken text adventures or minimally interactive audiostories. A Dusklight Story continues this trend of increased immersion and interaction with a 3D, walkable, explorable, and narrative-focused game. A lot of care has gone into the sound design; the game pays as much attention to the background environment as the foreground action. The post-apocalyptic setting is engaging while swiftly moving me through the mysterious and unsettling narrative. The story felt well-paced between action and dialogue sequences; I spent around an hour to play through Episode One. Controls are intuitive and the game has reminders for important actions and decisions. Arrow Keys rotate and move, Spacebar confirms in menu, and only a few other keys are used for gameplay. Overall, it does a great job of introducing the controls as you play. When you approach an enemy, pings guide you to either start the fight or avoid it with stealth. Combat is in first-person and you can rotate to keep the attacker in front, which feels more immersive than a fixed scene. The combat felt fair and straightforward, an introductory or easy difficulty for me. I really enjoyed playing it and I'm looking forward to future episodes!