Smoke and Sacrifice: A Game Review

This post was originally published at Sub-Cultured.  

Thanks goes to the unbreakable Kimmie Britt, for throwing some stress-free game related work my way. 

Pictured: Whimsy

Don't be fooled by the whimsically beautiful, hand-drawn aesthetic of this game like I was.  In fact, the only reason I decided to play this game, out of a choice of several others, was purely visual.  So, being the habitual lazy mug I am, instead of doing research, watching the entire youtube video, reading about Solar Sail Games, or, you know, doing literally anything at all before just jumping into this, I... just jumped into this.

Smoke and Sacrifice goes from cutesy and innocuous to immediate psychic scarring in the span of its own intro scene.  How is that even possible?  Might have something to do with you taking an active role in sacrificing your first born child upon an altar surrounded by sun-worshiping religious acolytes.  Maybe.

Yeah, so about those tiny houses...

Then the real nightmare begins: Flash forward seven years, the lights go out, the smoke pours in, the monsters come into the village.  You use the ensuing chaos, wrapped in a thick blanket of panic, to check out the temple and alter where you lost gave up your child, only to be teleported to a hellish landscape of terror and smoke shrouded danger.

That guy on the right?  That nightmare fuel right there?  Friendly NPC.

Set underground and spanning multiple biomes, Smoke and Sacrifice is a wonderfully crafted survival adventure with an engaging story, and an infuriatingly steep learning curve.  Fans of diesel-punk, the crafting elements of Ark, and games like Penny Arcade's On the Rain Slick Precipice of Darkness should definitely give this one a go.

Look, I'll be the first to admit that I'm not the brightest lighthouse on the coast, and I generally like my games fast and simple.  But, had I taken the time from the outset to pay attention to the background environment, I probably wouldn't have died 20 something times before making any significant progress in my play-through.

Actual transcript of this fight: F*** this game is hard... No wait, I got it... Never mind, I'm dead again.

Without you ever being involved, the ecosystem carries on with its bad self.  Polyps (little jellyfish enemies) mate and produce offspring, plants swallow glowbugs and emit protective light, anglermoles eat fireflies and belch flames at you.  Why does any of this matter?

See that monstrosity in the picture up there?  That was the first big enemy I was asked to kill.  How many times did he kill me instead?  An embarrassing amount.  It wasn't until I accidentally brought him too close to that wasp nest, that the coin finally dropped.  The wasps killed the boar, I killed the wasps.  I then applied that lesson to every other big-bad in the game.  Environmental interactions are the key to playing this game.  It was this revelation that made S&S go from impossible and 'why am I even doing this, Kimmie can go to hell,' to 'oh, this is way more fun now.'

Even the sound design is amazing.  Flapping insect wings, gnashing teeth, screen rumbling explosions, and prosaic music all contribute to a perfect symphony to accompany you on your quest.

Of course, no game is without its flaws.  However, in this particular case, they are few and far between.  Sometimes items you try to pick up are inaccessible because of the placement of permanent objects and how items drop.  Also there's...um...no, that's about the only bug I found.

TLDR:

Looks perfect, sounds incredible, plays great, gave me actual nightmares, not a tedious amount of grinding, virtually bug free, and I cannot wait to play more.


PS: SAVE.
PPS: SAVE OFTEN.