DISTRAINT | a Review
originally published on 17/11/2022;
Hello everyone, I am the loanshark with a conscience, G.E.M.Simov, a guy with a hat that looks remarkably like a kippah, here to tell you about DISTRAINT… Deluxe Edition?
Simple review details - I rank games on an out of 10 basis, granting up to 3 points in 3 categories, as well as a last, single point from my own self, depending on my experience with it.
Gameplay
DISTRAINT is a 2D side-scrolling Adventure game of the Poin&Click variety, though there is no pointing and clicking. Instead, the Player is presented the WASD buttons as their means of moving around - though the only use comes from A and D, as the environments are all horizontal - as well as the E key for interaction and the Spacebar for access to the Inventory.
What this game does interestingly is the simplicity with which it operates. The E key interacts with things that are interact-able. Things that are interact-able have an exclamation point appearing over the Player Character (PC)’s head, whenever the PC is close enough to interact with those things (objects).
If the Player collects an item, that item will go into the Player’s inventory, which when accessed, can be navigated by using the E key, as the inventory is a wheel with items, with the item currently selected being highlighted and being used to interact with objects and things.
That means that, to interact with things normally, the Player should go into their inventory and highlight an empty slot, for, otherwise, the PC will attempt to interact with things via the highlighted item.
And that’s pretty much it. The Player controls the PC, walks around with them, interacts with things and has a grand old time. Naturally, though, this is an Adventure game. Those come with the Stigma of having ludicrously stupid and obtuse puzzles that only get solved via sheer luck or the utilization of a guide. Does DISTRAINT have that issue?
It almost does, but that is owed up to the lackluster information provided to the Player. Some puzzles feature more than enough information to be obvious, others feature far less information and, as a result, are a little more time-consuming than they really ought to. In any case, though, DISTRAINT shows restraint in the field of ludicrously complex puzzles. That is not wholly good, but it is definitely not bad.
For what it is - a small, story-focused, visual storytelling empowered Adventure (puzzle-focused) game, this much gameplay is enough. 3/3
Presentation
DISTRAINT is a game relying on pixel-art to relay its visuals to the Player. In fact, it relies on some very good pixel-art… Though then there are moments when the pixel-art is questionable at best.
An example of this issue would be the opening room. There’s an elevator door, there are three ordinary doors, there’s stuff in the background that looks very neat, and then there’s the PC. The PC, ladies and gentlemen, looks silly. Goofy, if one will, for while the backgrounds and sets, and overall the areas in which the game takes place are aiming for an appearance that resembles reality - plausible is a good means of describing it. However, the characters all look a lot less plausible. Their bodies and heads are humongous, while their arms and legs are unbelievably thin twigs.
The best way to describe the ‘human’ characters in this game would be to urge you to imagine a barrel with a big pumpkin on it. On the upper rim of the barrel, where the barrel ends and the pumpkin begins, are attached, on opposite sides, stockings that reach down to the lower rim of the barrel, then there’s another set of stockings attached to the lower rim of the barrel. The head is the pumpkin, the body is the barrel, and the flimsy, thin stockings are arms (upper pair) and legs (lower pair).
This really bothered me, as I found their appearances so unappealing, so uninteresting and caricature-esque that I was really not interested in playing the game, initially. Fortunately, though, the main focus is slightly skewed towards the environments, so there’s less looking at the characters and more looking at the wondrous backgrounds.
Though the impressive accomplishments of this game’s Presentation do not stop there. I will call upon a game I’ve reviewed recently - The Desolate Hope - and use it as a comparison. In The Desolate Hope, there was an effect similar to that of damaged film. It was monstrously intrusive and straining for the eye, and there was no option to reduce or remove it.
In DISTRAINT, there is something similar. There is film grain, constantly present, growing more intense in some situations. That film grain is very well integrated into the ‘visuals of the game’, making it seem as though it is a mandatory part of the game and the experience it is providing. Not only that, it is quite tame AND one can set its intensity in the options menu.
Right, more on that - the game features a very neat main menu AND an options menu. Strangely enough, the game uses the WASD keys to navigate the menu, and the E key to select things, though that’s related to the Gameplay. What’s neat is that THERE IS A TEXT-BOX stating that this is so. In many smaller, indie games - such as DISTRAINT - the control scheme is some wildly weird thing, and the menu operates according to these wildly weird principles, so the Player needs to guess which buttons do what.
This clever means of presentation persists throughout the entire game. As mentioned, interact-able objects are highlighted by an exclamation point when one is close enough to interact with them. There’s also the fact that the font, as well as the size of the text, is very reasonable.
Then we could get to the scares, as this is supposedly a scary game. The scares are all mostly visual, with accompanying audio cues, though the audio cues are not monstrously loud, coming in out of a very quiet audio scene. They are just sounds joining in the cacophony of the game. The visual aspect of them is far more interesting, and I’ll keep it at that.
More on the audio - the sound effects of the game are very crisp. That could be because they’re a bit loud, or it could be because through their crisp loudness they work towards creating an atmosphere. An atmosphere of suspense and unease. Some objects let out their own sounds which grow louder the closer the PC is to those objects and fainter the further away they are, and then there are some sounds that seemingly originate from certain objects, but there is no visual indicator that it is so - in addition to that, they are not constant, so the imply that SOMETHING has happened whenever they occur.
That creates tension and unease in the Player, which is the best way of going about making a horror game - none of this stinky jump-scare garbage - and DISTRAINT does it quite well.
In addition to that, of course, the music is very fitting. Painfully drawn strings, almost like screams, though very subdued and distant… It isn’t something truly exceptional, but it is more than just okay.
One other thing this game does well is the subversion of expectation. I’ll leave that up to you to experience, if you do decide to experience it.
So, even with the issue of the weird-looking characters, and the issue of some very weird word presences in sentences (as far as I’m aware of she can’t do that - the “of” is needless), I would like to say that DISTRAINT’s appearance is very proper. 2/3
Story
The Player Character is Price. Price is a loan-shark (thus a very adequate name), but not just any loan shark - he works for the City and deals with all manner of repossession of property. You know, DISTRAINT. He lives in borderline squalor - though when you’ve no running water and water running through the cracks in the roof, it isn’t borderline, it is actual - but he’s very close to hitting it big at his company - Bruton, McDade and Moore - so it’s almost past him.
However, doing that kind of work is taxing on a person. After all, it’s a very, very stupid kind of work, conceptually and actually, but it is legal because… It is legal because that’s in the law. And if something is written in law, then it is legal and right and correct and morally justified, right? Well, we all truly know how that goes, so this is one of the many critiques extended by Distraint (the game).
Then there’s a very poignant presence - that of greed - in the story, too. The three big boys who run the company always appear accompanied by sacks of money, and when I say sack I mean Santa Claus sized sacks of money. Naturally, Price wants that. Everyone does, right?
And yet everyone is slowly coming to the conclusion that the ends justify the means. It is okay for me to do something, because then I will be paid money for it. It is okay for me to join the army and go kill people - legally - because I will be compensated with the ability to go to College without paying the monstrous amounts of money it costs. It is okay for me to take what people own, because they’ve done something very bad - they have not paid their loans in time - and thus I can destroy their livelihood. I can punish them for being punished already, because no one takes on a loan if they can help it.
You take on a loan if you have no other choice, if you’re forced to do so, if your back is against the wall… But, hey, the people who take loans and don’t repay them in time - they are BAD because they’re doing that thing. Me? The one who loans? I’m the good guy - I gave some money to this person so that that person can get back on his legs. Never mind the fact that he has to give me back MORE money than I gave him, hehe~
There’s definitely a very present critique of the conception that poor people are perceived as bad and lesser by rich people. There’s a very necessary critique of bureaucracy and the way our Laws are written - made so horribly unusable that there are professionals specifically existent for the sake of deciphering the Law for common people.
There is a lot in this game. And all of it is good, all of it is important and needs to be examined thoroughly.
There’s also some religious undertones, but they are very faint. Even for those who are against that, it can all be waved off as simply metaphorical. And, indeed - when one is dead, is one not better off than they were in life? 3/3
Legendary Point
Does this game get the legendary point, so craved and wanted by all and none at the same time? I would like to say that it does. I do, however, feel as though the existence of this game is a sign of society’s failures. If this game did not exist, if it did not have to exist, then it would be indicative of the fact that the world is a far kinder, far better place.
Not only that, but I feel as though no matter how many pieces of fiction and non-fiction appear in the world, these issues will not get solved, because those who stand to gain have very little - safe for their incredible quantity - while those who stand to lose have everything.
I really despise these themes and they sadden me tremendously. That’s both a good and a bad thing, but the fact of the matter is that nothing is being done to deal with the problems. That makes me interested in claiming that DISTRAINT is rubbing salt in the wound, the wound that is constantly being expanded by some lunatic with a scalpel, rather than stitched up. So NO, this game does not get the Legendary Point. 0/1
Conclusion
8/10. DISTRAINT is an impressively good game that suffers from a slightly repulsive character design flaw, which turns people off of playing it before even buying it. The game is, however, great. It is incredibly poignant and important, and I’d urge everyone to play it, with the exception of squeamish people and those who are afflicted with trauma from past events in their lives involving suicide.
I tuck it under my belt, another shining achievement that I proudly display. If only it didn’t look like a tumor-ridden pumpkin…