Unbeliever Early Access

Action-platformers are still quite popular when it comes to indie developers, even if their time has technically passed. However, there are still plenty of fans out there, not to mention the fact that it’s relatively simple to design a 2D platformer with today’s technology. Even so, it takes much more than a smart engine to create something worth playing, and that’s the biggest challenge.

Unbeliever is a Metroidvania-inspired platformer in which it’s just as important to use your attacks wisely as it is to jump and avoid the obstacles. In essence, the goal is to make it to the end of each stage without dying, but there are plenty of checkpoints to prevent you from losing your progress. On the other hand, the road between these checkpoints is pretty dangerous and challenging.

The story is not that complex, so it probably won’t make an impression on you, but then again the game is still early in the development stage, so it might get better in this regard by the time the complete game rolls out. Hence, the focus was on gameplay up until now, and you can tell that this chapter is pretty polished and refined, which is exactly what you want from a platformer.

Although your character has a very limited number of actions at his disposal, they all need to be mastered in order to make it past some of the more difficult sections. As an example, the attack button has two modes, depending on whether you want to tap it and release a short, but weak attack, or a spell that requires a longer key press. They both have their merits, it just depends on the situation you find yourself in.

As for the graphics, the game certainly looks retro, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it looks bad. Hence, the environments are quite moody and detailed, although they also have a tendency to become repetitive after a while. The same can be said about the level design, because you often feel like you’ve seen everything before.

In the end, Unbeliever is probably going to be a decent action-platformer when the whole game is released, but it needs more work before that can happen. As of right now, it feels a tad too repetitive and empty to be memorable in any way.