Sometimes all you need is a simple concept to make a fun video game. Just a bunch of discs flying around trying to kill you and you’re good to go. That’s the concept behind Disc Room – the latest indie offering from publisher Devolver Digital.
So, as I said, the concept behind the game is very simple. You’re dropped into a room with the sole goal of surviving as long as possible against an increasing number of deadly discs flying around. Some rooms you may be able to survive 30 seconds or so and some you may struggle to survive 10 seconds – the difficulty fluctuates wildly depending on the room. This is because the game has a surprising amount of variety both with the different disc types and with the setting for each room.
Some rooms may have you simply dodging basic discs, but with very limited light and some may have you dodging a ton of little discs, but only counting time while standing in the center circle. And some may throw out all of that entirely and be a boss fight where your time increases only by picking up little droplets (which also happen to damage the boss). For such a simple concept, there’s a lot of depth packed into each room and it was fun figuring out how each disc worked and how to best handle them.
The game also does itself a favor by way of responsive controls. Really, the only buttons you’re going to be pressing are your directional ones, your ability, and the occasional speedup. All are very responsive, and the overall movement feels fluid and intuitive. It makes dodging and weaving in and out of discs much more satisfying, no complaints there.
The graphics too, while simple, are very effective for this type of game. The discs are clearly defined against the background and the color choices makes it easy to differentiate between them – all while looking good at the same time. And that is all coupled with some great music, of which there is actually a lot. The soundtrack runs almost an entire two hours, just short of how long it took for me to beat the actual game.
My main complaint lies in the abilities. You get some really useful ones, like a dash that allows you to move through discs or a time slowdown, but then you get ones like being able to mirror yourself across a room or being able to consume and hold a single disc. The latter two I found to be very situational and almost useless in most of the rooms, so I pretty much always had either the dash or time slowdown equipped. The rest just simply aren’t that useful, it would have been nice to see the game expand their use maybe through additional objectives or whatnot.
I should also mention that the game does have a story, but it’s told in these very small comic book snippets. They’re incredibly basic and don’t really add much, so don’t go into the game expecting much there. This isn’t really the type of game that needs a story anyways.
So yeah, I’d recommend Disc Room. It’s got a simple concept, but some solid execution to back it up. Lots of variety, responsive controls, nice graphics and music – there’s not much to complain about here. It’s the type of game that knows what it wants to do and pretty much just does only that. Easy recommendation for fans of these fast-paced indie games or even bullet hell games, as it’s basically a fancy version of one of those.
Quote: Disc Room is a game with a simple concept, but some solid execution. Lots of variety, responsive controls, nice graphics and music – it’s an easy recommendation for fans of fast-paced indie games.
You can buy Disc Room on Steam here.
I was provided a review copy of the game in order to write this review. Read more about how I do my game reviews here.
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