Review | Drama

LifeisXbox’s Drama review | When I saw screenshots of Drama I thought it looked like the old games I used to play online. I couldn’t resist falling back in the nostalgia river and so I accepted this review. But boy was I wrong. Drama is a 2d action-adventure game developed and published by SHARED DREAMS STUDIOS. You spawn in a room that is the same every time except for what’s in it. You need to find a way to the door on the other side. You get 1000 lives at the start, how many lives will you have left in the end?

ℹ️ | We played Drama for 1 hour on PC. This game is only available on PC.

What we liked!

• Uhmmm | This might seem kind of harsh but I’m having a really hard time finding something good about Drama. In fact, I can’t find anything. 🙁

Somewhere between

• There is nothing I think belongs here.

What we disliked

• Controls | The controls in Drama are just impossible. You walk with the arrow keys, jump with the arrow up, jump off of ropes with space bar, and sometimes also have to use the mouse. This was really frustrating for me. And there is no way to change this! I played games for a long time, and I legit can’t remember a game having any options to switch controls. At least not a game like this.

• Physics, bugs and crashes | In a game like this, a lot of the game’s flow is determined by how the movement feels, and that is not great, I’m afraid. Sometimes you stand on a box, and you just slide off, without anything happening, or you jump for a ledge 20 times, and he just doesn’t want to grab it. And then there is that time I got hold of a ridge, and by climbing up, I went straight through a door. I’ve also had this game crash on me at least five times, and I have no idea why. You get to see an error, and there is nothing left to do except to act as a true IT specialist and turn it off and on again. With the way these things felt, I feel this game isn’t finished yet and needs a lot of cleaning up before asking for money.

• Hints | Don’t know what to do? No worries, there are hints. The problem is, they either solve the entire room without you having to think. Or they are useless. They also look like they have been google translated or something because it’s just not proper English.

• Graphics | As I mentioned above, Drama reminded me of old Flash games, but I thought of another game called Limbo at first sight. I adored that game, I watched a playthrough of it on Youtube since I couldn’t afford it, so I didn’t play it myself. But it was fantastic to watch as well. So imagine the disappointment when I played Drama. Perhaps comparing Drama to Limbo is a stretch because of the price difference, but it reminded me of it. There is one level that I have on a screenshot that looked amazing. Why not do the whole game like this? It’s so much better. And please make it an option to fullscreen the game.

• Music | There are no sliders for the music in the options. There is only a way to turn it on or off. So when you get to the menu, I was like… hm, ok, I’ll turn it down on my PC, no problem. But then you get in the game and… there is barely any sound. There is no music, just the sound of your footsteps and your body falling apart when you die with a scream of pain. There is this weird sound in the background, but that’s not music. It’s just a humming kind of sound.

• Easy and short | I played this game for an hour and completed it in this time. I know it has a little price-tag but with it being so short and easy to complete, I would really expect it being more clean and polished instead of having all these flaws that I encountered.

• Body surfing | You have no choice but to use your bodies after you die to get somewhere in some levels. You can have four dead bodies of yourself in a level before they despawn, and you can walk over each part, even your tiny arm, to avoid traps. If you are a game about having minimal deaths at the end compared to others, I don’t understand why you would do this.

How long to beat the story | 1 hour.
How long to get all achievements | No idea.
Similar with | Old Flash games.

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