KVARK – Even though it has been around for more than 25 years, Half-Life still seems to be an “ageless” game with many fans.

Recently, with the increase in both quantity and quality from the indie game industry, products inspired by atmosphere and story Half-Life There are more and more stories appearing, with the quality being… relatively fluctuating but still a very welcome sign.

From one Industria beautiful but “short of breath” in terms of storytelling and gameplay Acada It's more complete, but it loses the unique game atmosphere Half-Life bring, give Black Mesa – an impressive “remake” but simply a “retelling” Half-Life only.

For the above reasons, the appearance of KVARK is a very welcome sign. A product after nearly 3 years of development by a small team from the Czech Republic, KVARK carries a lot of the “DNA” (genes) of the game Half-Life first, as well as promising an experience that is both nostalgic and modern.

So team Perun Creative Have you done that? Let's find out with MarkGame through the following review!

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Run, Think, Shoot, Live!

Set in the former Czechoslovakia country in the 80s, players will play the role of a nameless, ageless prisoner who wakes up in a dark, cold cell under a dark research facility – with just one With a wrench and patience, the player will lead this guy through 7 levels to find out the truth behind this ill-fated nuclear program, or at least… survive.

First impression of KVARK Why does the game look like… Quake RTX position! Voxel graphic style, low-resolution character models, few polygons, but with an extremely modern lighting mechanism. But different from Quake RTX as well as RTX mods for other older titles, visual styles and lighting mechanics of KVARK Much more harmonious!

The game's environment is very well balanced between open spaces, overwhelming players with their scale, and narrow spaces, dark corridors with limited light sources, so when viewed as a whole, the atmosphere is beautiful. “nostalgic” graphic style of KVARK It doesn't feel outdated, but it's beautiful and fun!

In addition, the way the Perun Creative team mixes colors, designs enemies and specific details in the environment makes the game's graphic style more intentional, when important items in the game are both achieve harmony with the game environment, while also making it easy for players to recognize them.

Enemies will always have high contrast and easily recognizable colors, such as zombies wearing protective suits or radioactive rats, with reflective details that clearly pop out in the dark, weak spots. recognizable but not too unreasonable, and above all, the environment is clearly colored and lit so that the player always has a panoramic view of the dangers that the player must face.

It doesn't just stop there, KVARK also succeeded in building an extremely dark and scary atmosphere throughout the game.

The Perun Creative team achieved this by cleverly placing “blind spots” in extremely sensitive locations in the game, such as turns, walkways, and hiding places, keeping players always alert. Extremely alert state because enemies can always pop out at any time and cause the player to lose an important amount of health.

This combined with a thick atmosphere, excellent sound design and a “dripping” but captivating plot makes the experience of KVARK brings a feeling of horror but also evokes a lot of curiosity from players, just like how Half-Life achieved more than 25 years ago.

KVARK also succeeded in building an extremely dark and scary atmosphere throughout the game

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Elephant head, mouse tail!

Similar to many indie games released at this time such as SCHiM and Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley, KVARK continues to be the “victim” of excellent graphics, sound, and storyline, but the gameplay still has many shortcomings.

Although inspired a lot from Half-Lifebut the game doesn't really learn how the game arranges the environment, enemies, and encounters in the game.

The majority of clashes in KVARK enemies hide in hidden corners and then pop out to ambush players every time they go to a certain location, this makes the game's encounters gradually become predictable, and the game's scary atmosphere is lost. very much gone tomorrow.

This is a rather unfortunate point because the game's combat mechanism is relatively good, with a diverse array of weapons serving many different purposes, an upgrade mechanism… enough to use, as well as a variety of enemies. certain form in terms of image and behavior.

However, the fact that the game relies too much on an enemy layout that only knows how to… ambush and invade the player's position makes those good points disappear quite a lot after seven levels, this combined with the Boss battles are both low in quantity and poor in quality, making the game's combat mechanism more or less difficult to retain players.

The game relies too much on an enemy layout that only knows how to… ambush and invade the player's position