Something for the weekend #3
Die Hard. In Space. With talking cats. What's not to love?
For those of you not familiar with Blendo Games, let me hit you up with a quick primer: They make incredibly cool experiences.
From the short, punchy heist thriller Thirty Flights of Loving to astringent hacker simulator Quadrilateral Cowboy, the studio has but three things on their mind: Cool sequences, clever subversions of tropes, and the squarest heads you’ve ever seen in your life.
Its because of this modest but impactful pedigree that I’ve been dangerously excited for their latest venture, Skin Deep. A slapstick Immersive Sim set in a world of space faring cats and immortal pirates, evoking the likes of James Bond, John McClain and Corvo Attano, crafting from which a delightfully playful web of actions and reactions that give the game a brilliant sense of depth without making things too complicated in the process.
I haven’t played much of this yet, but even from the opening few missions I’ve seen a deceptively deep game. More user friendly than Quadrilateral Cowboy, for sure (you aren’t expected to write code in order to achieve your objectives), there still lies a friction to the mission design and the systems within it that feels so perfectly tuned that you have no choice but to play the game the ‘right’ way.
Just in the scant few moments I’ve had with Skin Deep I’ve been chased by pirates, jettisoned myself into space through stinky trash chutes, thrown banana peels, flushed disembodied heads down toilets and rescued dozens of cats. None of which was easy, all of which has been immensely satisfying.
Already I’m seeing a tease for the level of challenge the game is throwing my way, it’s not to be trifled with. It’s like they took one look at games like Deus Ex and Dishonored and thought: ‘what if this wasn’t a power fantasy? What if you had to use every dirty trick in your book to get the upper hand in every situation you found yourself in?’
Isn’t that just such a stellar idea to have?
Skin Deep is out now and available 10% off on Steam until the 14th May (but even at full price it’s honestly not that much). If you’re still on the fence, I highly recommend checking out Blendo Games’ earlier work Gravity Bone, which you can play for free, as a nice taster for the sort of shenanigans you’ll be getting up to in this latest venture.
Enjoy!