Gleamlight

Gleamlight is worse than the majority of bad games.

It's evident, even from as early a point in what is a dismally short but unsatisfactory game as this, that Gleamlight is both unpolished and unfinished.

Gleamlight is a game that could be something great, but squanders it at every turn. It’s on the right track by taking inspiration from a couple of great games, unfortunately, it never comes close to matching them. There is no purpose to the game conveyed through tone, music, characters, or text that will urge you to continue. If I had not been reviewing this, thus feeling obligated to flesh out the game, I would have stopped after the first forty-five minute run-through.

Gleamlight is a mixed bag. There are enjoyable aspects here. Unfortunately, there are larger and more numerous negatives. At the end of my playtime I was left wishing the positive aspects were in a better game. Taking everything into account, I would skip Gleamlight.

While Gleamlight is beautiful visually to behold some of the developer's design decisions make the game frustrating to play at times. The game isn't exceedingly hard but there are times, due to its dark presentation, you're not sure which way to go. The design leaves too much to trial and error. The decision to use a "keep it clean" design for the user interface sometimes takes it a step too far. With this being said, the game does offer some fun for the better first half of the game, after that it grows a bit stale.

Out of all the indie games I’ve played this year Gleamlight is one of the most disappointing. It isn’t broken or anything but it just doesn’t present much to make playing it worth it. It’s got a great art style but it tells you nothing about what is going on and the combat and level design is too basic and boring. Fans of Hollow Knight who are looking for a similar experience won’t find it in this cheap imitation.

Gleamlight may have been great in concept, but it does not work in execution. There’s nothing here that players can attach themselves to as a reason to continue playing outside of some great visual and sound design. The battle system is basic, the upgrades are the bare minimum, and the level design is a copy and pasted maze. The UI-less experience has worked in other games, but it comes off as lazy game development here when the team didn’t try to provide a reasonable explanation of its systems or narrative.

I say this with a lot of respect for a shipped game — Gleamlight doesn’t feel finished. Had there been even the smallest amount of text or UI, I honestly feel like this would have been a more enjoyable experience despite the other issues; if anything, those issues were heightened simply due to the lack of critical components. I love what the developer had in terms of concept, but as far as execution goes, Gleamlight, unfortunately, fell flat. You can find far better 2D sidescrollers for less money; unless the developer makes some sorely-needed improvements, it’s probably best to let Gleamlight fall into darkness.

So overall, Gleamlight is a good testing ground for a different kind of adventure but unfortunately some of its more unique ideas are what does it in. Gorgeous to look at, there’s simply no challenge to the combat and the platforming never really becomes complex enough to “make you sweat”. Adding in that the puzzle solving is extremely basic and I’m glad that it only took a few hours to go through because it all started to feel rather repetitive. That said, I’m hoping to see more in the vein of Gleamlight down the line with perhaps more refined features and a harder difficulty such as two hits and you’re out which would increase the stress of your decisions and the difficulty dramatically.

Gleamlight is a simple 2D platformer with a pretty premise but not a lot of substance to back it up.