Dysmantle
Game Title: Dysmantle
Released: November 16, 2021
Game Length: 72 Hours
Grade: A
Early Game
Environment: At the very beginning of the game, you find yourself coming out of a shelter into an enclosed subdivision. There are question and exclamation marks that you can interact with that teach you the basics of the game. When you enter certain areas of the game, quests will be given in a similar fashion. While you can only have a selected number of tools available, you can switch them out for other unlocked tools. You aren't going to find another human being. Everyone around has been turned into a zombie. Turrets and rocket launchers are also going to betray you as they will only target you! Almost anything from cars to brick walls can be broken down for resources only if you have the right tool for the job. If you die, you will revive at the last campfire. There will be a marker for you to retrieve the goods from your body. It will always be moved inward if you fell out of bounds.
Campfires: Scattered across the landscape are these save points. All downed enemies will revive when resting unless you have properly inserted the chip into the region's satellite. You can light the campfire and turn in your resources into the storage chest without making an official transition. Any items that will modify your character's health must be equipped while at a campfire. Anything you might have that has a limited supply while equipped will be refreshed. Equipment that are not slotted will be reduced to zero. This is the only way to obtain a skill each time you earn a level. Resting (other than the one at your home) will also reset the clock on all timed crates. The sleeping bag upgrade allows you to advance time and earn a health bonus. Other abilities like cooking or teleporting between campfires can also be unlocked as you make progress.
Cooking: While not exactly necessary to make progress, finding recipes by ravaging through homes can be quite beneficial. There are approximately 65 recipes to obtain - not counting the ones in downloadable content - that can add minor permanent buffs to your character upon being crafted the first time at any oven in the world (or campfire once you earn the upgrade). They can increase your evasion, critical damage, health, backstabbing, attack speed, or a myriad of other attributes. Every additional time you cook that recipe will only replenish a set amount of health.
Points of Interest: The map will update with a number of important markers. Audio logs, myth tablets, and radios will give you brief messages that pertain to the story. Buried treasure can be dug up for resources. Terminals can unlock new regions when the coast is clear. Wishing wells are these very unusual places that will exchange certain resources for other ones. Use your fishing pole at a fishing spot and sit back as your character pulls out a number of things from the water. Drawbridges are there as shortcuts to get back quicker once you reach another region.
Link Tower: One of the most important things in the game is the single large tower located in each region. You will want to find one quickly and initiate Deadly Transmission to prevent enemies from respawning after you rest at a campfire. To do this, you need to find yourself a Blue Eye Orb. They can be found by diving into a Tomb or defeating a boss. There are a few rare opportunities to obtain them as well from other aspects of the game. Blue Eye Orbs are also used to interact with Arena Obelisks. They summon a wave of enemies a few times before offering you a permanent boon. Although only one can be active at a time, you can swap between them at any time. Link Towers can also tell you the number of enemies still active in a region, where they are, and reveal certain points on the map. In order to unlock New Game+, you can defeat all the enemies and then use Ascension Signal. It does not destroy the tower!
Link Relay: Before you can reach the military base, four link relays need to be turned on. As you progress into these areas, the game will introduce to you slowly the concepts of temperature requirements in hot or cold regions, soft soil to grow crops, and the differences between blunt and slashing weapons. There will be different types of enemies and new unlockable tools. You will soon realize that this is only the beginning as you will immediately be tasked to find four fuel cells to power the escape pod.
Features
Remarks: There is technically a multiplayer option, but the additional player acts like an extended arm to the main player in almost every aspect. There are no difficulty options, but you can essentially make your own difficulty with what is available in the game. You cannot swim, but there is an item that will prevent you from drowning. Monsters will mindlessly fall into holes as they chase you down, attack wildlife, and cannot chase you down behind closed doors. You get experience from defeating enemies, searching, or turning in materials. There is an upgrade that will cost you experience to pull things out when it comes to directly turning in resources for building bridges or repairing devices. There is no stamina or limit on how often you can swing your weapon or run. Every basic thing needs to be learned like picking mushrooms, digging, and fishing. Almost everything you change in the world persists through your entire playthrough.
Weapons: Do not underestimate the physics of some of your tools. A riot shield is the only one that has durability and only depletes when preventing damage from enemies. Ranged weapons can automatically target enemies but are very dependent on real life proficiency. A rifle better targets something from far away while a sawed-off shotgun might only pick-up on targets closing in. Each bullet does damage. If you fire a shotgun, you could potentially kill multiple targets that all positioned themselves in a line. The particles that explode from a frag grenade can even destroy several crates on the ground. You can lay down multiple proximity mines, but the bear traps only last a limited amount of time. The ammo box acts like a campfire and replenishes everything that has a set number of uses (except itself). Height is also something you should sometimes consider since certain weapons can be fired over small objects. Make use of those explosive barrels with grenades or other incendiary devices.
Quality of Life: Everything you have will automatically be deposited into your stash without any concern of weight, amount, or room. You can even move away from the chest as it is unloading everything. There are tools you can obtain to collect everything on the screen or automatically teleport all of your goods directly into storage. Not only can you learn how to teleport between link towers but also campfires with the downloadable content. A pet earned from downloadable content cannot be killed, but turrets will occasionally try to shoot them down.
Miscellaneous: Breaking down objects will provide you the appropriate material. A plastic chair will provide you plastic while a metal chair will give you metal. A house bed will provide fabric while a prison bed will give you metal. Both wildlife and enemies can "signal" others in the area that you are nearby. One very unusual decision is how there is very little music. You will only hear the ambient sounds of the wild as you traverse the map. Songs will surprise you at key moments when you are transitioning to a new part of the map.
Mid Game
Building: Although you might have found a place to setup a home, you could potentially build things almost anywhere. The most basic skill to craft walls becomes available at around level 10. A portal home can be obtained after you reach level 30. A special door forms after you travel there that allows you to return back to your original location. A paint brush will allow you to change the color. You'll slowly learn how to combine material into their advanced form with a sawmill and smelter.
Shelter: Although you might have located your first shelter within your first 10 hours of the game, completing the Tower Defence game might be a bit difficult without some extra firepower. Before you start the event, there should be a loudspeaker nearby that shows you the route enemies will take outside the bunker. Each of those you find in the world will supply you with a central processing unit. This allows you to create another machine gun turret. Once you are able to withstand the waves of zombies, you can grab yourself another central processing unit somewhere inside the shelter. Make sure you have the upgrade that allows you to refund 100% materials when breaking down crafted items. As an added bonus, turrets can be created almost anywhere as long as there are no enemies nearby.
Traits: Once you upgrade all your necessary survival tools to maximize your efficiency in carrying all the material your hoarding brain can manage, you might want to try out some of those other skills. Animal Friend is quite interesting when you can feed pets with treats, heal them with a pat on the head, have them follow your side, and fight any nearby monsters. Have fun with your army of deer, but try not to kill them with any friendly fire. If you are attempting a playstyle that prevents you from resting at campfires, things like Culinarist or Doctor can come in handy.
Late Game
Rifts: This is going to get a lot of people curious very early in the game. Every now and then, you will stumble across some sort of electric current flowing in a spot on the ground. A smart person would have realized that these allow you to get into those high unreachable locations inside a region. The ability comes from a quest very late in the game in the far corner of the desert. Obtaining a tool will automatically update your map for any you might have found on your way there to the new rift icons.
Gas Mask: Another hidden tool that takes some time to discover is the one gas mask left in the entire world. The game teases you as you follow the trail of an archeologist to track it down from her dead corpse in some strange part of the game. It is necessary to enter into later parts of the game as you pass by broken pipes dispersing toxic gas into the air.
The Ark: For those familiar with cozy games, this area functions as your museum. You turn in a good number of resources on the first floor to unlock the second level with the infamous power fist can be obtained. In the war room, you will find every link tower blinking on a giant table map. Activate Ascension Signal for each one to turn them from red to green and you will unlock the third level. This will activate the Pale Protocol where you can enter the New Game+ escape pod (you cannot go back once you enter). Different types of mana needs to be turned in to access the fourth and final level that shows you the next game they are working on.
Downloadable Content
Underworld: The first downloadable content can be found rather early in the game. There is an entire underground area where time has been displaced, pulling segments of history together. The regions will test your patience as you slowly test how far you can fall off the raised land. The good news: You can teleport between campfires. In fact, you can learn how to do this in the main island once you reach the main lab. You will encounter beings made purely of mana that can only be phased in using your new mana shard crossbow or darts. Although the crossbow does not do a lot of damage, you are able to retrieve your ammo wherever they might land. Once you complete the content, night terror bosses start spawning in specific spots on the island (and disappear after 5am). You can now grow mana on your farm and plant crops down on multiple plots at the same time. There's also some localized mana shards that you can use like the Ascension Signal.
Doomsday: If you stumble across a very big drone with a cage, you might find yourself taken over to another island with three science divisions. Each one focuses on a new feature for you to use. The first is the ray "gun" that shoots out an energy beam. Not only does it harm anything in its path but there are also puzzles that need to be solved by bouncing the energy off special panels. The second division accidentally grew a giant plant while researching certain flowers that will permanently increase your tolerance of the temperature. The third has you taking down a giant mana missile, but the scientists there seem to have ordered a usable lightsaber.
Pets & Dungeons: Perhaps the most fascinating addition to the game is the ability to have a pet by your side. There is an entire sub-story where you meet with a special artificial intelligence that grew out of some old pet code infused with mana. You learn that there was an entire subdivision of scientists who were somewhat confined to appeasing their newfound animals. Scattered about like dig sites are small portals that take you to a dungeon area where you solve puzzles or fight enemies. You can unlock one final region once you find all the portals in the southern desert portions, central areas, northern frozen wastelands, and both downloadable content sections. One fascinating tool will allow you to refresh fish spots once a day. You can instantly travel to the pet area, like your home, and switch to another pet from your character interface at any time. Pets will randomly attack things, but they will prioritize enemies chasing after you. Objects can be used to manipulate your pet like a control collar so they don't randomly attack objects, a chew toy to send them to a location in a puzzle, or a pet whistle to tell them to sit. You can pet them at any time. There are around 25 pets available, each with their own individual perks for different aspects of the game.
Summary
Review: What first appeared to be a simplistic game turned into quite an adventure as you traverse this massive world that is passionately built from the ground up. While there are some odd choices in the lack of difficulty, music, and multiplayer, things can get very interesting when you must carefully navigate temples full of guards, military bases with functional turrets, and labs that bend reality. There is a long list of skills, tools, and weapons to keep things fresh as you fight different kinds of zombies, aggressive plants, and giant robots. You can build houses, farm crops, and cook meals. There is definitely more to this game than meets the eye.