Back in 2012, BeautiFun Games – a small Spanish indie studio – was created, and thus began the journey of their first game, Nihilumbra. First released back in 2012 on iOS, the puzzle platformer has won a few awards. Since then, it has been Greenlit on Steam and released on PC with some improvements to make it nice and shiny. You take control of Born, a creature born from depths of The Void and you need to guide him throughout his journey in his world, all while escaping the grasp of The Void that will devour anything to get you back.
Story mode is very simple, think of it like a more elaborate tutorial if you will. Each new zone will introduce you to a new element yet will also bring you more challenges while telling you the story of Born trying to break himself off from the clutches of The Void. You begin in a snow covered wasteland to introduce you to the power of ice, which allows you to slide to pick up speed that will make you jump further or make enemies slide in a certain direction at great speed. Grass will provide a patch that makes you bounce allowing you to reach new heights, while sand will provide stealth for you to sneak past snoozing mobs or stick smaller mobs to surfaces. Once you hit the Volcano zone, you will be given the power of fire to damage pretty much everything out to get you. Then you get electricity that allows you to activate switches.
The game is designed with a touch screen in mind, but I didn’t find that affected the ease of placing the colours in any way – though it does require some trial and error on the harder levels to know where to put your colours accurately and quickly. You can use the scroll wheel on the mouse to scroll through the colours (I use a Razer Naga so it’s easier for me to switch through the colours due to the number pad on the side) and to switch to Void (to remove colours) you just press “E” and if you press it again you go back to the colour selection. It can get tight to grab two skills in quick succession while moving and trying to place at the same time.
The story itself is a bit cliché and can be a bit depressing at times – I won’t go into to much detail because spoilers – but if you do play the game then you will know what I mean. Though, the story itself is basically told in the description – Born was produced by the Void and escaped; now he spends his life wanting to become more “alive” while fleeing from the ever stalking destructive force that is your creator. With the PC port, they added narration over the top of the game, which I am trying to decide whether it was a good idea or not. The narration can be pretty off-putting from the game at times and intrusive. Should you move to a new area and not have finished the narration from the previous, if you want to listen to it you have to go back and wait until it’s over, which can get kind of boring.
It took me approximately two hours to complete the story mode, and by that time I was sufficiently comfortable with the powers that were bestowed upon me through Born’s journey. After the Story Mode, Void Mode is unlocked which puts added difficulty into the game – the difficulty change from story mode can be a shock since the difficulty difference is quite significant. You return to the worlds that you discovered and fell in love with to remove the essence of the Void that lingers, by completing the levels, you will help rid the world of the nothingness. You have all the powers at your disposal in which you need to use your brain to get through the challenges. There are 36 levels in total (8 in the first world and then 7 in the remaining), plus a further boss level per world which makes 5 in total, for you to put your brain into gear.
The art style in the game is lovely; the backgrounds are hand-drawn and simple. They can be quite repetitive, but since you’re thinking away with the puzzles the repetition doesn’t actually come across too obvious. The music really adds the finishing touches to the melancholic feel throughout the game. Now and again some parts can get slightly monotonous, but you don’t really stay with the same music for too long, so it’s not so much of a problem. BeautiFun have done a very good job with getting the general atmosphere of Nihilumbra across.
If you’re a fan of the puzzle genre, then Nihilumbra is a game worth picking up. The element/colour placement is a nice change from the norm and the price is decent for how much game time you can get out of it. I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect from Nihilumbra, as I hadn’t played the iOS version or really heard too much about it. I was, however, pleasantly surprised. It’s not without its flaws, but it’s a solid indie game to pass the time.
Nihilumbra is currently on the Steam store for €8,99/$9.99/£6.99.
