03/01/2024
Weakless.
Puzzles based on the use of the unique abilities of different characters, between whom you need to switch competently, have become popular for a very long time. The trendsetter in this direction is The Lost Vikings, the first major game from Blizzard Entertainment (then the company was called Silicon & Synapse)? published back in 1992. Since then, in such projects, as a rule, the usual formula has been used: one character is strong but slow, another is fast but weak, and so on. The authors of Weakless, it would seem, decided to diversify this scheme by making one hero blind and the other deaf. But they still ended up with variations on the “Strong/Fast” theme.
My own director
The disabled characters in Weakless are “twigmen,” fictional arboreal creatures who set out on a journey to save their home forest from environmental disaster. “An unusual story and a fascinating exploration of the world” - the promises from the press release lie. There is practically no history as such, it is presented only indirectly, including through cave paintings, although even without that the message is banal to the point of yawning. The forest is bad, there are some pipes and mechanisms all around, nasty things are flowing from the pipes, Rot is setting in, and we need to restore the source of life-giving resin.
This is the mission that the Blind and the Deaf go on. There are no dialogues, videos, cut scenes, humor or, conversely, drama - we just go from point A to point B, overcoming obstacles and solving puzzles along the way. Yes, there are the already mentioned cave paintings and other sketches, which in theory also reveal the world and history, but in this case, more and better could have clearly been done. Sometimes they are allowed to get distracted and go somewhere so that the Deaf One can make a new sketch in his journal, and the Blind One can find a new unusual musical instrument and play it. But, you see, it’s difficult to call this “an exciting exploration of the world.”
Serving the number
These sketches in the magazine and performances on musical instruments are the only thing that reveals our heroes as living characters. And here I am again forced to point out the lies from the official description. “The cheerful, smart Deaf warms the introverted introvert Blind with his cheerful disposition. And the calm and balanced Blind takes care of the fidgety Deaf” - where all this is in the game itself is completely unclear. Hints of real care, which smacks of the promised “story of strange and silent friendship,” appear briefly only at the very end.
