In Retrospect Demo - Musical Action Platformer Retelling Your Life and What You Focused On
25A demo playthrough of In Retrospect, a rather beautiful game where you're presumably in the afterlife with a spirit guide named Dee (probably short for "Demon" if this takes a darker, Twilight Zone twist) and retelling your life in the form of platforming levels and collecting items depicting what you focused on in life - health, wealth, education, creativity, love, or spirituality - that give you different bonuses for future chapters (and will determine the ending in the full game).
The music is very well-done and by far the best part of the demo. The platforming is pretty basic in controls but a good bit of fun - you can't stop running or falling, and must use a variety of moves to navigate obstacles and hazards, with more challenging paths often rewarding you with more collectibles. I'm genuinely interested in seeing how the story itself plays out, along how collectibles factor in. This playthrough focuses on health (gives a health bonus on levels), but I've also played with wealth (accesses a shop before the level, not all that good as 50% extra max health is the most useful and inferior to health focus) and spirituality (gives an immunity shield for several seconds three times in a level).
My only criticism is with how hazards are placed getting hit can stagger you and prevent you from dodging the next hazard, potentially chaining multiple hits with little you can do (death is a slap on the wrist it seems). It might also be a bit difficult to focus on one collectible (or how well you're doing collecting one type during a level) when trying to learn a level for the first time. Plus, as health heals you and gives a sizeable max health increase, folks might focus on health over other types.
This is still a game worth keeping an eye on.
0:26 Waking Up
2:01 First Tutorial
3:15 Chapter 1: Effervescence
5:29 Conversing with Dee
6:39 Second Tutorial
7:10 Chapter 4: Disorientation
10:17 Conversing with Dee again
11:26 Third Tutorial
11:47 Chapter 6: Redundancy
15:41 Conversing with Dee some more
16:48 Chapter 7: Requiescence
20:34 Demo End Screen
The demo can be downloaded from here: https://paper-salamander.itch.io/in-retrospect-demo
You can wishlist the game here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1123360/In_Retrospect/
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