A human colony built away from Earth seems like a nice place to live. Where nothing goes wrong as everyone lives to better the colony. But what happens when you add something nonhuman?
Steam: Released
Developer: DazlogStudio
Publisher: Badland Games
Genre: Puzzle Platformer
Type: Single Player
Released: February 14, 2017
Story
You play as a little unnamed girl who wakes up while a security system, Boor, starts to eliminate the humans in the colony. Tasked to save the people, travel through Eden to find and defeat Boor as you encounter twists and turns. Maybe, along the way, you can hear the background of Eden and Boor by interactions between you and other characters.
Gameplay
BOOR plays like any other puzzle platformer. Platform your way through the puzzles embedded within each level through a total of 85 sectioned off to four acts. As you continue, bits of information about Eden or Boor will be relayed to you by others between key levels.
The puzzles start out simple, getting you used to how they will usually work and how your character and enemies move. Introducing the mechanic if your grey clone being controllable for a limited time, unless you pick up red pellets, to help in sticky situations. Won’t be able to jump back? A grey door blocking your way? Use your clone! This learning period happens during the first act which acts as a tutorial.
As you progress more new gimmicks begin to show up. Bringing in more opportunities to clone, portals, homing missiles, sentries, and more for you to solve. Some needing to be so precise, a second off can make or break it for you. While these puzzles are mostly easy, they get harder as the puzzles get longer. Taking death after death as you try to figure out how to get past it.
After making some progress, bosses will occasionally cross your path. These are straightforward, all using a pattern based attack system that leads to you just needing to survive. Dodge and eventually an attack will go against them or run into something. Using small details to show which stage of damage they are in. Remember the old three times the charm cliché? BOOR uses this so a boss sequence is not too long. A single hit will spell disaster, forcing you to try all over again no matter how close you were to defeating it. This can be very annoying and I do wish there was some leeway with damage when up against bosses.
Sound
While this is not voice acted, the opening sequence was done beautifully. Once after, the soundtrack takes over, bringing in a wave of calmness as you travel your way into Eden for the first time. It does change, but it changes very slightly by either changing the speed, tones, or notes. So when you make it inside, the music changes as the stakes become higher. The bosses have a slight change that you can entirely miss, but it does try to have each boss have their own sound.
The sound effects are not unpleasant to the ear, though the dialogue effect can be grating after a while. There were also some areas I thought needed music or some sort of sound effect as it was quiet.
Art Style
It cannot be helped to think of BOOR’s art style adorable. Mostly having a simplistic design with details added when needed. Reds and greys, along with a film grain, to give off the feel of an otherworldly environment; with skulls scattered to show the deaths that have taken place. The humans have a long body, which looks weird by the little girl, and greyish-white eyes. It is weird that the humans don’t have pupils, but it does work with their design. While Boor and its security bots are represented by eyes that are strangely human-like. Though it does give it the feel of being watched as the pupils follow your every move. One of my favorite moment was a bunch of screens coming down revealing eyes.
Performance
BOOR ran pretty well, but I had trouble with the speed of the character. Without changing the settings the character walks pretty slowly, but changing seems to make it too fast or fluctuate between the two. Other than this, everything worked fine. Though it is noteworthy to say that you cannot take screenshots.
Replayability
Taking around two to four hours to complete depending on how fast you can solve puzzles, BOOR can be replayed for multiple reasons. Cogs have been hidden throughout Eden that goes to an unknown device. Finding all the cogs, around 17-ish, does not change anything within the story, but you need at least five cogs to get all achievements.
Another reason is for the arcade games that appear in the middle of BOOR. You can play as long as you can on them, but do not continue if you still want to. Three games are available along with three achievements to go with them. Get 1,000 points in each to get the last batch of keys that is not story related. It starts out slow but quickens as you continue. If you go past to finish the game you will have to restart all over again. I wish there was a way to go back and play the arcades, and if there is one I do not know about it.
Overall
+ Adorable art style
+ The use of story telling by character interactions
+ Polished, does what it set out to do
+/- Soundtrack
+/- Unanswered questions
– Difficulty spikes during bosses
While BOOR does nothing original, it does not have to. Using old gimmicks to their advantage and focusing on getting the main aspects right makes this game stand out. While it does have downfalls in some areas, I can still say this is a great game. The price also makes it a safe purchase, not making it too expensive that the length is too small for people. With the open ended ending, I do see a possibility of a dlc or a sequel as many questions remain unanswered.
RATING:
(click on the image to see the rating explanation)
