Black The Fall is set in a Communist dystopia, and you play as Black who is trying to escape from a facility that seems hellbent on seeing him trapped here forever. At first glance, Black The Fall looks a lot like Playdead’s Inside, and it does have tones similar to it. However, Black The Fall has a lot more to the gameplay than both of Playdead’s previous games, and does enough interesting things to warrant a place of its own.
After years of suffering, Black decides to escape the Communist regime, and makes his way through an industrial complex outfitted with various mechanical contraptions and puzzles. You get a laser pointer of sorts that can control others in the complex, and help you solve some of the earlier puzzles. Soon after you befriend a robot dog that helps you along the way. The puzzles in the game are where Black The Fall is at its strongest, and require some clever deduction and observation from the player.
Some of the puzzles can get tricky to solve, but it never took me more than just a few minutes to get to the solution. Maybe it was a lack of highlighted interactible or destructible objects in the environment, but, in the end applying simple logic sufficed for the most part.
There are times when you are using and controlling your fellow man in order to make your escape. You’re also leaving him behind, and that’s where Black The Fall asks some interesting questions about what you are willing to do to survive. And that narrative tone is sustained strongly till the game’s satisfying conclusion.
There are some deaths in the game that can feel cheap as there is no way of foreseeing them apart from trial and error. But the game is quick to load you back to a nearby checkpoint, and I never felt like I was backtracking or losing progress. For the most part, Black The Fall amps up the difficulty slowly, and while every new scenario presents new challenges, I never felt stuck for too long. The camera would subtly transition from 2D to 2.5D to show a bit more of the levels when needed, and the overall presentation is sharp.
The game looks great overall, with good usage of lighting and a muted color pallette. It does have similarities to Inside, but I personally like the variety and added gameplay elements in the environments. The sounds are also really well done, adding to the foreboding nature of the factory complex. Turret gunfire sounds harsh and lethal, and the sounds of machine seem almost omnipresent. Even the quiet moments have a feeling of unrest.
In some ways Black The Fall does what Inside failed to do – be a good video game with interesting gameplay and puzzle elements throughout. With narrative hooks just as compelling, and a strong presentation, Black The Fall is a thought provoking game that deserves to be played and experienced by everyone.
Kudos to Sand Sailor Studios for making such an amazing game. You can check out our Interview With Cristian Diaconescu here.
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