Pulse

The theme of disability and its video game representation is fashionable right now! After the release of beyond eyes and before the release of the promising perception, here comes the surprising pulse! It embodies a young blind woman who must discover the truth of abnormal phenomena that may destroy the world. With the help of the spirits of the forest (the Mokos) Eva can better grasp the world that surrounds it and thus evolve in complex and ambiicated levels. With a control system at the FPS, the game offers us to explore the world thanks to the sounds. Thanks to the Jet of spirits, we can better situate ourselves by generating sound and being able to move without too many clashes. If pulse shows itself to its advantage very quickly, one understands fast enough that the experience will turn short because the gameplay, as interesting as it is, is quite redundant once the base of the mechanics of the game posed. Pulse immediately puts us in the action and does not actually offer a complete tutorial. We have to do it right away and discover the different aspects of the game. It is possible to jump, run and use the Mokos as probes or to operate mechanisms with the left mouse click. The mokos follow us automatically but they lock themselves in the décor quite often and thus force us to return on our steps to go and look for others if we used the only one we had to operate a mechanism. The game takes on the principle already seen in beyond eyes to know that the décor reveals itself to us according to the sounds it produces and according to our use of the Mokos. It is quite easy to move in spite of some minor collision problems with elements of the décor and it will be necessary to be agile when faced with classic platform passages. The game pushes us to explore with the presence of spirits to harvest all over the levels but also in our quest because some passages are quite complex to visualize well given the nature of the game. We will quickly face formidable adversaries, monsters that will have to be avoided and who seek to devour us. The life span of the game is quite low, we will quickly go around in a few hours without too much procrastination. If we like the challenge, we can try to go unlock all the achievements but even with this carrot, the game is quite expensive for the game time it offers us. The realization is good with beautiful shimmering graphics and a sound part at the top whether it is at the level of the atmosphere as music. At the maneuverability level, the game is playable with a joystick (it's even better) and the keyboard-mouse combo. Note, however, that it is not yet possible to edit the control keys and that it will be necessary to either switch its keyboard to QWERTY or to accommodate the basic keys. The game also has some optimization concerns with passages that paddle while one has a pretty good machine. The graphics settings are quite limited and I have not found any possibility to change them in an INI file. Pulse does not have a steam card but it could happen within a few weeks. The game is a bit pricey for what it proposes in the end but we spend still a pleasant moment to discover this universe and to unravel the ins and outs. In the end, pulse is a good surprise, I didn't really expect this kind of experience and this style of gameplay. The game still has a lot of worries in terms of the layout of certain levels, more or less coarse bugs and the lifespan. We still spend a pleasant time for little that we love the short but interesting independent games. I also recommend the soundtrack which is excellent for this kind of game.