Black Resin is a stylish cinematic pixel art stealth action platformer where you control a shapeshifting inky black creature as it sneaks and kills its way through an exploited war-torn world.
The visual style and gameplay in Black Resin is fondly reminiscent of Amiga era classics like Flashback, Another World and (the original) Prince of Persia. In the game you take control of a strange shape shifting creature that appears to be made out of the same inky black substance that the two warring factions in the world have been fighting over. As you sneak your way through the world you’ll learn more about the history of the world and why you’ve got beef with both of the warring factions.
You’re weak and no use in a straight up fight, but you’re stealthy, you can stick to surfaces and you can squeeze your amorphous body through obstacles. Also, if you approach them without being spotted, you can possess your enemies. This allows you to shoot other enemies and objects and bypass certain security protocols.
The current build of Black Resin is a three level prototype that you can play through in around 20 minutes. It may be early in development but it’s already a very polished experience with high quality pixel art animation, excellent audio design and an engaging story. The level design is particularly creative and you have a nice selection of interesting abilities to deal with any obstacles that come your way. Plus it’s always fun to be the monster for a change! Highly recommended.
Check Out a gameplay Video Here
Download The Black Resin Prototype Here (Windows & Mac)
I have just played the game (demo) through.
There is so much to praise about this, holy cow. I’m not even dead yet, that’s how alive I feel playing this.
The world is immersive while yet alien. Too many games- almost every one I’ve yet played that takes place on an “alien” world- still makes it much too human-like and recognizable, while still presenting themselves as hard-sci-fi – in the form of TMI culture details – and visuals, resulting in just an awkward and nauseating cyberpunk experience with humanoids and human-like technology that are supposed to not be human. Looking at you, Freedom Planet and Mass Effect.
By contrast, Black Resin’s world is truly alien, by visuals and by presentation, with no spoken English; only a light touch of written English for the sake of control grasping; and the technology -individual items as well as the collective technological environment, largely looks like it has followed a different path of development from human technology.
It is otherwordly, and yet not self-assumingly so; I admit this next part I still don’t know all the reasons for: The fantasy element in this science fantasy game seems worldly and tame enough for the material/sci-fi stuff to make sense, even be and feel essential, yet just high enough to allow suspension of disbelief both for the similarities to our own world as we know it, and for the logic used in the game’s own fictional universe – both the gameplay aspects such as enemy AI, and the architecture of the factory being so conveniently in place for the Black Resin to make her way through.
Admit I, there’s so much else to say. For now, this is what I want to say, while I can still remember it through my excitement.
I am very eager to see how Black Resin advances. Please consider getting back in touch with the developers in the near future.
Ok so I admit this clearly has some great potential but if I may give some legitimate criticism. Now obviously this is the demo and not the finished product.
But one major problem I currently see is that least in comparison to other reverse horror games and what makes then work is knowing your scaring the crap out of your targets. Maybe it’s just because of the first level and the monster was literally just made. But I think it genuinely hurts the game if we actually don’t see fear from the victims in some way to really sell your character is a monster.
And due to the slight power fantasy of reverse horror games. I hope the main character picks up new abilities that can put into physiological horror for her victims so they can act in certain ways so they can help solve the puzzle as well.
I hope this criticism will prove useful.