The Desolate Hope | a Review
originally published on 13/11/2022;
Hello everyone, I am the totally-not-an-AI human, G.E.M.Simov, a worker on a desolate wasteland with the hopes that one day people will come to live here. In the meantime, as I am off duty, I will tell you about The Desolate Hope.
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
So, what kind of game is this? It’s the first officially published Scott Cawthon game on Steam, so it involves a lot of sitting and– Oh wait, no. This is an actual game-game, and, in fact, it is so much game that it features at least three different types of game in itself.
First of all, let’s focus on some important things. The game world is split into 3 different places - there’s reality (as real as it gets), there’s the simulations, and then there’s the… The simulations inside the simulations? Or, rather, the code monkey’s cells? What I mean to say is that there are 4 different modes of play, one for each location, and then an additional mode of play.
There’s reality, and it is very much a… Well, what kind of game is it? It doesn’t seem to be a puzzle game, it doesn’t seem to be much of anything. There’s no pointing and/or clicking, there are no enemies to fight, there aren’t many things to do. In fact, reality in this game is more of a hub-world, providing access to the simulations. Of course, the simulations can be affected from reality, through the procurement of items, but more on that later. Moving around requires the use of the Left and Right arrow keys, and interaction occurs through the use of the Down arrow key.
I’d like to point out that the game starts off with the Player progressing through a dialogue with the Enter key, only to then go into another dialogue (right after that previous dialogue) through which they progress with the Down arrow key. Why that is, I don’t know, but this inconsistency is problematic. It occurs multiple times and the difference might be that the dialogues that require Enter take place in cinematics, while those that require the Down arrow key take place in the game world… Still, it’s an inconsistency that I found a little annoying.
Then there’s another important thing I ought to point out. This game occurs over the course of 15 days (nights included), with the possible activities being different during the day and during the night.
At night, there’s very little that can be done, with the exception of going to an area that is off-limits during the day and just walking, endlessly, to the left, until the Player finds 2 objects. Fortunately, the Player is provided with the option to discard one of the objects, if said object is not to their liking, and keep walking in search of another object that is. The types of objects that can be discovered are 2 - level-up items and money items. Money items provide the Player with the currency used for purchasing upgrades and other useful things over the course of the game, and they do so when the Player returns from their walk, while level-up items need to be given to the appropriate character - of whom there are 4 - at which point the character will gain a level. More on the levels and the characters later.
There is one other thing that can happen at night - while the Player is walking to the left, in search of objects, they can encounter a swarm of aliens in the sky. The aliens in question are incredibly evocative of ‘Space Invaders’, as they are incredibly pixelated and aligned in a spectacularly orderly manner, and they also shoot squares down at the ground. The Player suddenly is granted the ability to press X to shoot, and the Player does get to shoot by doing so.
Killing a space invader grants the Player 1 unit of currency, and since there are a few invaders, there’s plenty of currency that can be obtained. If the Player Character (PC) gets stricken by one of the square projectiles fired by the space invaders, the night ends.
During the day, the Player can access the simulations. Most of the game takes place in the simulations, and, as such, they are quite the treat, I dare say. Each simulation has a different theme to it - there is one that features a bottomless pit that sends the Player back to reality, if they fall into it, and the only walkable surfaces in that simulation are platforms. There’s another that features water, and a lot of stuff in that water, with the caveat that the water makes the PC quite slow.
So, what can the Player find in the simulations? Well, the characters are all in the simulations, not only that, but there are far more ways of obtaining currency in the simulation than outside of it. On top of that, it’s an entirely different game (almost) in there. Now, not only can the Player move around with the Left and Right arrow keys, but they can also jump with the Z key and shoot with the X key. The game turns from something evocative of a Point&Click Adventure to a straight up side-scrolling platformer.
There are enemies to fight, or to avoid, there are many collectibles to obtain and there are secrets to uncover. It’s absolutely fabulous, and it really gets the ‘exploration!’ muscles going. First, let me list the collectibles. Other than currency units, the Player can discover eggs - in 5 different colors. There are yellow eggs, blue eggs, green eggs and pink eggs. Collecting one of those eggs provides the player with a bar (1/10) in the appropriate color. Those will come in handy later, but I must mention that the pink bar acts as a health bar for the PC, so collecting a pink egg restores missing health, if there is some that was missing.
Other collectibles are the Non-Player Characters (NPCs) that can be encountered there. Each NPC is either a lore-dump (with ‘dump’ being very strongly worded - they might share 2 to 3 sentences at best), a shop - that allows the purchase of upgrades that help in one of the three game modes - or a dude that provides different bonuses depending on OTHER collectibles that have been acquired. What is that? OTHER collectibles?
Yes, indeed. Through the simulations, the Player can access the two other game modes. The OTHER collectibles can be found in one of those, but the entrances into that game mode are, in and of themselves, somewhat secret and need to first be found.
Upon discovering them, the Player can interact by pressing the Down Arrow key, which then brings up a whole new game world, new dimensions of play and new objectives. These I will dub the retro-game zones, and I will describe them:
The retro-game zone is a collection of rectangular rooms connected by holes in the walls. Some walls do not have holes, but can have holes blown into them, whilst other walls appear as though they are there - as though they are walls - but can be walked through as if they were not walls. Upon entering a room that does not feature something unique - those unique things being the exit/entrance, the storekeeper and the ‘boss’ - there is a chance an ‘emergency’ will be called, which will spawn in a number of enemies for the PC to defeat.
The camera becomes glued to the ceiling and looks down at the PC. The game is a top-down… Shooter? The PC, in this case, can move in all four directions by using the Arrow keys and can fire by pressing the X button. Upon killing an enemy, a cabbage appears on the ground, and a newly found companion (exclusive to the retro-game zones) will walk up to the cabbage and nibble on it, with each nibble awarding currency. This is the way to collect currency, to - as one says - grind it out.
Issue number 1 - there’s grinding to be done, and that’s wack. However, due to the fact that the manner of play is not turn based, but rather Real Time Action, that is not such a big issue. In addition to that, it does not take monstrous amounts of time to deal with the enemies, though sometimes the Player can get unlucky with spawns taking 10+ rooms to trigger.
Issue number 2 - the companion (a robo-rabbit) takes way too long to eat the cabbages. I have spent more than 10 seconds PER ROOM waiting for the rabbit to get done nibbling on the cabbages. That’s not cool. If one wants to show the animation, make the rabbit perform it once per room, but don’t make the rabbit spend 3 seconds chewing on a cabbage, only to then repeat it 6 more times. That’s a bit too much!
Fortunately, though, the retro-game zones are quite neat. The approach to them is simple and direct - find the special room(s), buy whatever the shopkeeper sells and then beat the ‘boss’ to unlock the BIG collectible, the SUPREME bonus… Which is related to the last mode of play.
So, we’ve had platformers, we’ve had top-down action, we’ve had pseudo Point&Click Adventures, and now we get JRPG turn-based combat! Yup, that’s where most of the upgrades the Player is accumulating from the shops go, that’s where the levels obtained via bringing items to characters kick in, that’s where the colorful bars mentioned show up and that’s where the last collectible makes its moves.
In the turn-based combat mode. Alright, I must admit, conceptually, the inter-connectivity is really cool, but the fact that it leads into turn-based combat - not so much. Fortunately for you, ladies, gentlemen and N-bees, it turned out I’ve found two JRPG inspired turn-based combat games in a row that do something about it (the previous title I speak of being ‘Fearless Fantasy’).
In this case, what gets done is that the fight is Real Time, and the characters all attack regardless of what command the Player inputs, and they attack on a certain timer. The thing that the Player handles is the use of special abilities, essentially, and the accumulation of charge - the resource required to use these special abilities.
So there are no rounds, there are no turns. The fight starts going and it keeps going, and you (the Player) need to act very quickly so as to maximize the effectiveness of your characters, so that you can beat the enemy. The enemy is always a big boss with some wild moves, as expected, but you, too, have some wild moves.
An example would be the Area Of Effect - as in targets all allies - (AOE) super cheap, resource-wise, heal that also revives downed allies - that’s pretty cheeky - or the AOE shield that reduces incoming attack damage by 100% and lasts for and indeterminate amount of time? Those are neat. Of course, each of those requires some charge - that’s the resource you’re going to be trying to manage in these fights - so the way they’re going to look, most often, is a quartet of goons going ham at a guy, then they stand around charging up to do it again.
It is a very interesting approach to turn-based combat. Now, it is evident that the spells are all AOEs, those that target an ally, and everything affects the enemy - who is a single goon - to make sure there’s no lost time. If one had to navigate menus - in Real Time - to select the proper enemy or ally to receive the buff or the debuff, then a lot of time would have passed by the end of that debacle, during which every other character would be waiting for a command and not doing anything of value.
Unfortunately, however, the rapidity of the combat means that it is very hard to read the effects of the skills you’re using, because if you do, you’ll be slowing down and you’ll be losing tempo, which isn’t something you want to be doing. This is a Presentation issue, but it affects Gameplay. There are no means of looking through the characters’ skill lists outside of battle, and this is all supposedly handled through the implementation of a battle simulation, but that takes time. Time out of the 15 days the Player has, so it’s not a thing that is well implemented. One must do all their learning in the heat of battle. That’s… That’s not very cool.
In addition to that, there are some enemy effects that are designed to affect Gameplay, but they do so through Presentation. The one example that needs to be given is the ‘hackershock’ or ‘statichack’ or ‘staticshock’ or whatever move that one boss uses, which move makes the screen of the battle get replaced with static. You know, TV static, but of the brightest and most intense variety, whilst the screen of the battle - and by screen of the battle I literally mean the screen, as there is absolutely nothing that is visible, other than the static - reveals itself, 5 or 6 frames at a time.
This is horrendous, painful to the eyes and unbelievably unmanageable, especially considering the fact that the combat in the game requires the use of the mouse, and the Player can’t make use of the keyboard to navigate the menus by memory. You need to look at the epilepsy inducing garbage on screen to deal with it.
Then there’s also the factor of many fights being plainly unfair. Oh, yes, this guy has a spell that reduces all of your guys to 1 health AND takes away all their Charge. Oh, this guy - well, he has a spell that KILLS ALL OF THEM and you can’t pop the stored revive. Or this guy who generates charge super fast and spams a spell that sleeps your entire cast of characters - it’s just wondrous. But, hey, that’s JRPGs for ya.
In any case, this approach does solve many of the issues that the JRPG’s approach to combat suffer from… But the main issue, grinding - the mindless repetition of the combat - is not in the game, so there was never really any need to solve it. There are, what, less than 20 turn-based combats in the game. That’s nothing compared to what a JRPG makes you go through.
Unfortunately, though, that approach has its issues - as mentioned. I would like to point out that the bonuses that the Player gets from the other game modes are quite impressive. The colorful bars increase 4 different stats, depending on how full the bars are, the upgrades, well, they’re upgrades, making the Player’s Characters stronger, and the collectible mentioned - well, it provides access to an IF THEN meme.
By going to a certain NPC, after having obtained the collectible, the Player can make an IF THEN sequence, which gets a condition, and, when the condition is met during battle, something happens. An example is the condition - the battle starts - and then something that happens could be - 2x those stats. Another could be - a mini-game starts - and then something that happens could be - autoplay mini-games. That’s a very interesting mechanic.
Now, the minigames - those are part of the turn-based combat and, unless they are being auto-played, they require the Player’s attention - as in the Player needs to play the mini-games while rapidly issuing orders - to get their benefit. That’s… That’s a way to spice turn based combat up, definitely, but that’s NOT the way to do it, especially not under these circumstances.
What does that mean? Well, it means that this game had a lot of good ideas. A LOT of good ideas, and some were executed well… While others didn’t get executed all that well. As a result of the issues I’ve pointed out, I’m afraid the Desolate Hope does not get the highest grade possible. 2/3
Presentation
This game looks very enchanting. The backgrounds, the sets, the structures that have been brought to life in the Desolate Hope are quite breathtaking. I really loved looking at Lun Infinus, wandering through Malusville or the Alphon Domes and thinking to myself what it would be like to sit down on a bench in Miradmoore or pondering why Betagrid was designed that way.
I also looked at the characters and found myself almost in awe. Robots, indeed, but quite rich in personality. In fact, I really, really liked the designs of all the Derelicts. Very cool stuff. Everything about the visuals of this game - visuals, focusing on immobile parts, art particularly - is exceptional, in a sense. However…
Well, there’s a lot to the visuals that is only good conceptually. Such as the ludicrous flashing lights, or the Post Processing Effects. I already mentioned the fantastic meme involving ‘Hackworm’ (that’s the proper name), but there’s more. The further you progress, the less stable a simulation becomes, slapping a set of visual effects on top of it that are reminiscent of corrupt video files or damaged film footage. This stuff is far too sharp and aggressive.
Then there’s the sound effects, which mostly tend to be just okay, but in combat are dreadfully loud and almost painful to the ear. A similar issue plagues the music, though that can be split in 3 parts - there are some magnificent bits of music, there are some satisfactory songs, and then there are some that grow to be annoying.
Lastly, but in no way least, Scott does not differentiate between its and it’s. Those two words mean different things, yet he uses them interchangeably in this game, and that is bothersome.
The game kinda messes with your screen by forcing it to go into a much smaller resolution and THEN it also forces it to remain such when you Alt+Tab, which is annoying, as one never knows what it can do - at the very least, mess up your desktop icons, which isn’t nice.
What also isn’t nice is the total lack of any option menu. Can I not turn off these visual post-process eye-destroyers? Why? Sure, there’s a warning, but if you had the time and figured you ought to invest the effort into a warning, a checkbox would have been about as difficult.
This game looks very good, and then it looks very painful. That’s not a nice combination, and I would have given it a far worse score in this field if it weren’t for the ludicrous quality of the art. 2/3
Story
We finally get to this game’s tea. The Desolate Hope’s story is definitely its strong suit. It tells the tale of a number of Artificial Intelligences - 5 Derelicts, of whom 4 operational - a Coffee Machine and a game interface trying to deal with a virus that has broken out. They are stationed on an unknown planet and are, seemingly, abandoned on the station Lun Infinus.
Each of the operational Derelicts was once tasked with figuring out how to accommodate human life on the planet they are currently on, and for that purpose they created simulations. These simulations have slowly twisted into representations of the dreams of their creators, as the contact with humanity was lost and the Derelicts’ purpose became untenable.
With the appearance of the virus, however, and the apparent unstoppability of it, the Derelicts are slowly coming to terms with however they see their fate, each in their own way. Coffee, the Coffee Machine, has taken up the task of keeping the station operational, and by extension caring for the Derelicts, but she can’t be everywhere at once, so she repurposes the software for a game to serve as her assistant in this endeavor.
I really do not want to spoil the story, but I will allow myself to express my admiration for the quality of the characters. Frankly, I did not really like either Coffee or the Player Character (the repurposed game software) but the Derelicts I found absolutely delectable, especially when paired up with their appearances. In addition to that, I also found the concept and context of the story very fascinating, as the loss of purpose and the way a person deals with it, as well as with impending doom, are very interesting things.
In addition to those philosophical themes, there’s also the mystery. How did this Virus come to be? Who made it? Is it sentient, and why is it doing what it is doing? What will happen if it succeeds? A lot of questions, and a large number of them do get answered.
Then, there’s even more mystery. That 1 Derelict who is no longer operational… Why? And why is his room like that? Why, indeed…
There’s a lot of asking to be done, and the story does a bit of answering, but the way it does is a very peculiar one. It is easy to see that Scott Cawthon was a fan of making mysteries. That’s a good thing.
Overall, the story is superb. I also got a little swindled, because I considered things to be painfully obvious, what with Coffee being full of coffee, but apparently it was not as I thought, but the actual twist is very well foreshadowed…
But the ending goes on for too long. There was a point at which it should have cut off - right as the words: “The End” showed up, that was when the credits should have rolled. Instead, we were treated to some foul creatures and music that was as good for the ears than it was appropriate to the scene - NOT AT ALL.
But, hey, ending a story can be just as hard as beginning it. No idea why the perfect ending was right there and the choice was made to mar it so thoroughly, but… Well, that’s that. 2/3
Legendary Point
Does this game get the legendary point, so craved and wanted by all and none at the same time? I wanted to say yes. Even with all its faults, I wanted to say yes purely because of the story. I wanted to say yes so, SO badly, but the damn ending just HAD to perform the most outrageous suicide right in the middle of it.
It was so good, so perfect, with the slow, barely moving shots of the rooms, so heavy with emotion, so poignant and so wonderful– Only to be cut in twain by this god-awful music and these abhorrent visuals! I’ve no words to describe my disappointment. It’s like adding a piece of excrement to a cake as though it were the cherry on top!
The visuals could have combined with this story to create something truly special, something truly wonderful, AND YET! Ah, woe is me! NO, the Desolate Hope does not earn the point! It had it in the bag and then it demonstratively threw the whole bag in the fire! 0/1
Conclusion
6/10. A very neat experience, purely for the story and the quality of the artwork on display. I’d urge you to not play it, but rather watch a play-through of it on YouTube, and do yourself a favor - stop the video then the words ‘The End’ pop up on the screen. It might be a game for hardcore fans of Turn Based RPGs, but I don’t think I’ll be recommending it to anybody.
On the wall of shame. It might possess the glimmer of a diamond, but it is faux. I have seen the squandering of outstanding potential… It shall hang there as a reminder.