Welcome Time Wasters!
Every week here has me looking through various different games before deciding on one to present to my faithful readers. This week was no different. However, I actually ended up picking a game that wasn’t quite finished. Longtime readers know what this means. This week’s piece won’t be a full review and won’t include a score due to the unfinished nature of the game.
The game I discovered this week is Deul. No, that isn’t a typo. It’s spelled Deul. It’s a game that has players taking on AI and others in a contest to see who has the faster reflexes.
Deul (I swear I’m going to mistype that at some point), takes the classic western standoff to smartphones with simple, but entertaining gameplay. All the controls require of the player is for them to be able to click one the screen where they want to shoot. That’s really all there is to it.
Deul has several different modes for players to check out. The first is a high score type of challenge. It pits the player against increasingly difficult AI to see how many rounds in a row they can win. It’s really what I’d call the core of the game. It’s fun and players can level up to unlock more bullets that have different effects. Players use collected currency from winning matches to buy the different types of bullets. This can also be used to buy cosmetic changes for the player to give them a custom avatar.
The next mode in Deul is called Ragdoll Fight. It’s just a simple mode that has the player crashing one ragdoll into another until it dies. This nets extra currency, but really nothing else. It doesn’t fit well with the rest of the game and I really have to wonder why it’s there.
Following up RagDoll Fight is Shoot the Bottle. This mode does make sense and it’s a lot of fun. To put it simply, players will have bottles thrown at them from off screen and have to shoot them before they reach the avatar. Failing to do so will result in the character’s death, which means a loss. It also nets extra money and is entertaining.
The last mode available in the current version of Deul is a versus mode. This lets two players compete against each other on the same device to see who’s faster. The players have to wait until a light turns on to shoot, or else they’ll be penalized. It’s a neat idea to add local versus, but it’s something I would only feel comfortable playing with my wife. Sitting that close to someone else to play this mode would feel a bit awkward.
The overall idea behind Deul is solid and it will entertain players for a decent amount of time. It also helps that there are achievements in the game that are actually fun to get. This includes shooting an enemy’s gun out of their hand and then shooting it again in the air, breaking the glass in a room, but harming nothing else, and more.
The audio in Deul stands solid. It’s got a few basic songs and a crowd will cheer or boo depending on the player’s actions in a match. There doesn’t really need to be any other audio in the game. Plus, I know a lot of people are like me and play smartphone games with the sound off while out in public.
The visuals in Deul work well for a mobile device. There’s a lot of flat, but bright, colors and sharp edges that help items and characters stick out on a smaller screen. It’s also got bullet time effects whenever shots are really close or something awesome happens, like two bullets colliding in air.
Deul is already an alright game for being infinished, but it would be a bit medicore if this was the final product. Luckily, the developers are planning to add more guns, online multiplayer and a story mode. This all sounds really promising, but isn’t expected to be ready until next year. Here’s hoping it’s as good as it sounds!
The score section is being filled with a placeholder of 2.5 GiN Gems out of 5 due to the game’s unfinished status.