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Deliver Us Mars is a bigger, prettier, more physical space sequelPuzzles meet platforming on the red planet
Puzzles meet platforming on the red planet
Deliver Us Mars | Story TrailerWatch on YouTube
Deliver Us Mars | Story Trailer
The descent into the quarry also provides an extended look at Kathy’s skills with a pair of climbing axes. The climbable wall sections are clearly marked, but rather than simply scamper across them Lara Croft-style, you’ll need to position each axe (and hold them in position) individually. Accidently release at the wrong time, and you’ll plummet – maybe a bit slower than on Earth, but still – to your death, unless you have space below to slam in both axes and slow your fall.
This sounded a tad tedious when it was explained to me, but in practice, I like it. Having to focus on axe placements means you’re never just holding down a directional key to progress, and there was genuine tension at some moments as I tried to position a tricky left-click while literally holding down right-click for my life. And the audio design, oof: stabbing aluminium into rock has never sounded so satisfying.
The only catch is Kathy’s oddly robotic climbing animations, arms and legs stretching and twisting almost independently of a static, unbending torso. Developers KeokeN Interactive have sprung for fully mo-capped cutscenes with facial capture, but these also serve to highlight the moments when Kathy goes stiff. Hopefully these can be smoothed out a bit over the extra few months.
Other technical hitches were minor, but noticeable: a floating stone here, an FPS drop there, a strange shadow suddenly covering exactly half of Kathy’s face like she’s doing a Deathstroke cosplay on zero budget. Again, there’s work to do, though between the climbing and a couple of jumping puzzles later in the demo, it looks like KeokeN do have the new traversal challenges down.
The puzzles have a nice physicality to them, too. There were only a couple in the preview, but both involved movement: either remote piloting AYLA to open holographic locks, or mantling between rooms to activate a criss-crossing pair of power-generating beam emitters. Some suspension of disbelief is required to avoid logical nit picking – there is a lot of “why would anyone build X like this?” – but… come on. You’re on Mars.
