On April 5, the indie game Dance of Death: Du Lac & Fey from developer and publisher Salix Games was released. We tell you how the project was met by the players and the press, evaluate its possible sales.
About the game
Dance of Death: Du Lac & Fey is a classic quest. The game has been released on PC, but the developers are also preparing versions for PS4 and Xbox One.
The game is based on the story of Jack the Ripper. The gameplay is standard for detective quests: exploring locations, searching for clues, interviewing witnesses.
Detectives are atypical for the Victorian setting characters — the heroes of “Arturiana” Sir Lancelot and Morgan the fairy in the form of a talking dog. The player will have to control them, as well as the psychic Mary Kelly. Each of the three heroes has special skills useful for detective investigation. For example, the Morgan fairy can communicate with animals and find out various details from them. You can switch between the characters.
Initially, the project was released on Kickstarter. The developers wanted to raise $ 52 thousand, but the backers brought in a little more than half of the required amount. The fundraiser was canceled the day before it ended. Nevertheless, Salix Games still brought the game to release, although it took them longer.
The price of Dance of Death: Du Lac & Fey on Steam, taking into account the release discount, is 460 rubles.
Media ratings
Over the weekend, the press left little feedback on the project. For this reason, there is no average rating of the game on Metacritic yet.
The reviews that exist vary greatly in their tone. For example, a Cultured Vultures journalist evaluates the game positively. He admits that the game has disadvantages (for example, 3D characters sometimes look out of place near hand-drawn backgrounds), but praises many other aspects of the game.
“The first thing you’ll notice in Dance of Death is the beautiful graphic style. The graphics are combined with clear and smooth animation. <…> This game is not perfect, but I believe that its positive aspects far outweigh the negative ones. Fans of classic adventure games will definitely love the main characters; it may take time for the rest of the players, but it’s definitely worth a try. Also, it’s probably the best game based on the Jack the Ripper story.”— Cultured Vultures
Some reviewers, on the contrary, do not like the graphics and animations in the game.
But she, in their opinion, still manages to recreate the atmosphere of London at the end of the XIX century due to her artistic style. It also sounds great.
“The minus in the form of a rather linear plot becomes irrelevant thanks to an exciting journey through various areas of Whitechapel. The game is full of interesting characters, absolutely sublime voice acting and music that gives pleasure to the ears.”— MMO in Game
The unusual combination of Arthurian characters and a Victorian detective surprised many reviewers. Although this may be the main feature of the game, they note.
“Despite the absurdly creepy plot of Dance of Death: Du Lac & Fey, the game developers from Salix Games have previously worked on Killzone and Batman: Arkham Knight, which is why the project, at least, deserves more attention than it seems at first.”— Gagadget
And there are publications that did not like anything at all in the game.
“The road to failure is paved with good intentions. The developers clearly like the literary version of Victorian London and the work of Marion Bradley. But they are not capable of creating compelling narrative games. Technical limitations, scenes that look more like concept art from the alpha stage of development, unfinished characters that do not create any emotional connection with the players, as well as the complete absence of puzzles or resonant twists in the story do everything to make Dance of Death difficult to recommend.”— Rageqult.gr
On Steam, the game has equally positive and negative reviews. According to a number of players, Dance of Death deserves attention. It looks and sounds good. Its main characters — Lancelot and Faye — are a very original tandem. Most players mention voice actors. And they are also happy that the simple gameplay does not distract from the plot, even if it is linear.
However, Dance of Death has technical problems. The dissatisfaction of almost all reviewers was caused by the automatic saving system. Due to the inability to save the game manually, many players lose up to an hour of progress.
In addition, there are a lot of bugs in the game, so users are very counting on patches.
Forecast
Dance of Death: Du Lac & Fey is a representative of a rare genre at the present time. This year she will have only one significant competitor. This is Blacksad: Under the Skin, planned for the fall from the publisher ofSiberia, And already now Blacksad is a more hyped title than the indie game Dance of Death, which may go unnoticed.
The advantages of the game are its strong casting, the Victorian style favored by many users, as well as the story of Jack the Ripper itself. This topic is quite popular in popular culture, but still it is very rarely taken as the basis for the whole game. Fans of quests and myths about the Ripper may pay attention to Dance of Death, but it’s definitely not worth predicting a big success for the game. Our forecast is no more than 20 thousand copies sold on Steam in the coming year.