Deadlight – Zombies of the Pacific North West

It’s no secret that I love me some side-scrolling platformers. So it should come as no surprise that when I saw Deadlight by Tequila Works, I  had to pick up a copy. Seriously, how could I not play a zombie survival platformer set where I live? Deadlight is an engaging example of the genre that incorporates a good amount of puzzle solving alongside rampant zombie avoidance. Avoidance? Yep, this isn’t a zombie killing spree kind of game. This is a survival game where swinging an ax gets tiring and firearms (and more importantly, ammunition) are scarce and precious resources. 

Let’s get this started with quick synopsis of the plot. The year is 1986 and zombies have become an inexplicably large and widespread problem. You play Randall Wayne, a man displaced from his home in Hope, British Columbia by a problematic outbreak of people not staying dead. For some reason everyone in 1986 is calling the walking dead “shadows” instead of zombies. We join Mr. Wayne and a group of fellow survivors as they arrive in Seattle, Washington chasing promises of a safe zone where they might find respite from their fight for survival. Beyond mere safety, Randall is also searching for his missing wife and daughter that he hopes have made it to Seattle ahead of him. After murdering a member of the group that has been bitten, you are separated from the other survivors to enable their escape. And thus begins the game and your lonesome struggle.

Deadlight could easily draw comparisons to Limbo on an artistic level for the use of background depth in an otherwise 2D side-scroller. However, the background in Deadlight is worth paying serious attention to as the undead can move from the background into the foreground to cause our protagonist some problems. The colors used are usually (there are exceptions) rather washed out and lend a gritty, bleak look to the world. I doubt that a better choice could have been made to provide a proper ambiance for a zombie survival game. There’s a dark beauty to this game that can sometimes be overlooked as you run for your life.

I have a few complaints about the game on a mechanical level. I was playing Deadlight on the PC using a mouse and keyboard while the intent seems to have been for this to be a controller based game. As such, some of the default button choices on the keyboard are cumbersome. It can feel like the disparate elements of the game (puzzles, run/jump action, and shooter) are a bit cobbled together. Their synergy isn’t always fluid, but I wouldn’t actually say it’s bad; I’m just nitpicking. Otherwise, I enjoyed the need to quickly switch gears between clearing a room of zombies, figuring out how to use the zombies to your advantage, or just plain running for your life. For a guy that can’t swim, Randall can parkour like a ninja.

Story wise, I have to say that I immensely enjoyed finding Randall’s diary pages. Slowly piecing together the maddening journey that he had endured for months was fascinating. The best part of that is the lack of chronological order so that pieces just float around a while until the connecting information is found and often making the two pieces even more chilling. I also particularly enjoy that the origin of the outbreak and the reason that the zombies exist is never explained. Randall is just a guy trying to survive in a world that doesn’t make sense anymore and that’s all the player really needs to know.

Fort Lawton refinery on Harbor Island

One other thing that I just can’t avoid bringing up is the choice to use Seattle as the backdrop for the game. As a resident of Seattle (though admittedly I didn’t live here in 1986), I was rather distracted by the serious inaccuracies in the game that I feel go beyond artistic license. I’ll limit my rant here to a couple quick examples. Firstly, using Gas Works Park as the refinery backdrop for Fort Lawton (which is largely a public park as of 1973) which in turn is located nowhere near Harbor Island just seemed ridiculous. There’s no reason to just mash together places and images that nobody is really going to care about (unless you’re some pretentious jerk living in Seattle) just because they all exist in the same city.  Secondly, Seattle does not now, nor did it in 1986, have a subway. Of course, I really don’t expect these things to bother non-residents that have never been here, but why specify Seattle if you’re going to portray it extremely inaccurately? Just call it Greentown or something and make it Seattle-ish.

Overall, Deadlight is a worthwhile game if you’re a fan of platformers. If you like zombies and platformers, I can’t believe you haven’t already bought it. It has some control difficulties if you’re using a mouse and keyboard like me, but I can’t imagine it being a problem if you have a controller. Why don’t I have a controller? Mind your own business. I think there’s a zombie behind you. The bottom line on Deadlight is it’s a fun game at a low price.