Deios II/Deidia (Review)
Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £6.99
Where To Get It: Steam, Itch.IO
Deidia is a clever game. Deidia is an artistic game. Deidia is punk as fuck. And, like many of these interesting altgames, it’s probably not going to do amazingly. That’s a real god-damn shame, and let me tell you why.
It begins with a reference to the demoscene. That’s right, the demoscene, you younguns may not remember that, where folks wanted to make their 3.5” floppy collections (or, to go back further, cassette tapes. Yes, in Ye Olde Days Of Gaming Lore, games came on tapes) of demos and programs as flashy and memorable as possible, so they did all sorts of fun things with text effects, colour cycling, and chiptunes. The intro even has a scrolling pixel vista to introduce the game like an old Amiga or Commodore 64 game.
Scrolling Amiga/Atari style text? Why, I haven’t seen that in donkeys!
And then you get in, and… At first, it’s jarring. It’s lo-fi, highly pixellated rocks, obviously layered over each other. The hero has a triangular cape that wouldn’t look out of place on a shitty N64 game. There’s even 5’25” floppies as platforms for the intro. And yet, there’s a weird sort of beauty to it, so… You go deeper. You hit an obstacle… Oh, shit, it’s got clicker/wait elements. So you buy Deitycoin clickers with your Deitycoins, get a little deeper, and…
…Invisible walls. And floors. And sometimes, the floors aren’t there when they should be. It’s at this point that so many people would quit. But… There’s always this text, at the top of the screen, telling you to hit G to corrupt the world. So you try it.
The world opens up. You start experimenting more. The visceral disgust as you hit 6 (Player Distort) and AAAAAAwhyarethey ohwait. Because you distorted the player sprite. There a reset here? Oh, yeah, for the world to- Oh sod, you’re back at the beginning of the level. You can’t fall very far without resetting the level. You-
There are many different areas, each with their own challenge, and requiring different hackery to get anywhere.
Will, in many cases, for many of the “You” that are reading this, ask for a refund. What garbage. What trash. But those of you who don’t realise… You don’t have to take that first door. Or you don’t have to play the way its intended. You set the world drifting, and somehow, manage to reach that first door, or another one somewhere else, or… Your options start opening up, and the world… Plays with you.
Right now, I’ve hit the first hub (or is it?) I’ve got more questions than answers. There’s lots of places I can go, and maybe one of them leads to this Deidia that I must apparently find… But meanwhile, my Deitycoin interface is… Slowly filling up with something. I’ve discovered (in the course of attempting to screenshot the game for review) another layer of ways I can, in a way, be the glitchy deity of this strange world, screwing with its rules. I’m noticing counters, and while even I’m not sure I want to continue, I find myself appreciating how a seemingly simple game can have… So many possible layers.
If you don’t mind spending £7 on something that isn’t the friendliest (and deliberately so) , but experiments boldly, and has a unique aesthetic, then go for it. I genuinely can’t tell you if you’ll be disappointed or not, because I’m not entirely sure how I feel myself.
There are invisible things here. Time to… SHAKE THE WORLD!
But I don’t feel I’ve wasted my time or money examining this one, whether I go back to it or not.
The Mad Welshman lost his console command list a while back. If anyone remembers how to change that one variable that makes everything seem terrible back, could you kindly let me know?