Welcome to Wake, an indie platformer from Boss Baddie. It was released about a month ago, and the two charming chaps from over in the UK were kind enough to send me a copy to review.

Yes, it is another indie platformer. But it does have two things going for it. Most platformers ask you to go to the right, but Wake asks you to go up. And Wake makes you get wet.

Gameplay

Wake is a race against the rising waters, so the dryer you are, the safer you are. You start near the bottom of the ship and have to work your way to the top. When you’re dry, it’s a pure platformer. You can run and jump, hang onto walls and, if you find an ax, chop through wooden doors. You can also find flares and flashlights to help illuminate the ship. The running feels great, and changes as the ship shifts in the water. Running uphill is slow, and running downhill is fast. The only weakness in the dry controls is that you can’t jump off of walls, except when you can. There are a few things on the walls that you can hang onto, and you can make small jumps off of them, but I never quite got the hang of it.

Besides ascending the ship, you have to worry about the large areas of the ship that are on fire, and the ship’s security system, which is online and shooting at anything that moves. If you’re shot too many times or burn for too long, you pass out until the water rises high enough to wake you up, which is a pretty clever way of doing things.

The only way to die is by drowning, but that’s pretty hard to do. A circle forms around you and slowly contracts as you run out of air, but you can hold your breath for a long time. Also, there are trapped air bubbles in most rooms to keep you oxygenated without getting out of the water. While you’re under water, you can’t do anything but swim. The swimming feels pretty natural, but getting out of the water and onto land takes a while to get used to.

The goal of Wake is not just to escape the ship, but also to score as many points as possible along the way. There are keys and bits of meteor strewn about the ship, and each one you have in your inventory at the end adds to your score. You also get points for any distance between you and the water and a score multiplier for the difficulty setting. My first score was the lowest on the board when I submitted it, but my second submission was considerably higher.

Style

Wake combines pixelated characters and backgrounds with some high-end lighting effects. The flames and other light sources look wonderful, though they can be too bright on occasion, so bright you can’t see anything. The ship lists as it sinks, and the generator stops and starts, flickering the lights before they go out or go on.

And the music does a great job of conveying the mood of the ship. It’s upbeat when the lights are working and foreboding when they’re not, and the transition between the two states is perfect.

Story

You uncover the story as you go through the ship. It comes to you through radio signals and you learn why the ship is sinking and who the captain was. There isn’t much of a story, but it helps you connect with the engineer you’re controlling and care a little more about the situation.

Everything Else

The game is pretty short. My first playthrough on easy took a little over an hour, each subsequent game was shorter. It’s designed for replay and exploration, and bitter feuds on the leader boards. There are also quite a few easter eggs and achievements to unlock, so it should keep you occupied for as long as you’re interested.

[DIYgamer.com was provided with a copy of this game for review purposes. This in no way affected the outcome of the review. A demo can be found at Boss Baddie's website.]