SLUDGE LIFE

SLUDGE LIFE is finally making its way to Steam after being on the epic store for the last year. This is a game that seems to split the audience down the middle with you either “getting it” or just not thinking it is very good at all. I think that there are some great ideas with this game and if they had just gone in a tad more with them, I think this could have been something pretty special.

Sludge, Sludge Is Everywhere Man!

There is not some big over-arcing plot that you are working your way through in SLUDGE LIFE. You play as an up-and-coming tagger (graffiti artists for you non-cool kids out there) called GHOST. You are stuck on this gross island that is covered with pollution and corporate advertising and you want to stake your claim as the best tagger, by tagging your logo on 100 different spots.

Commentary Without The Commentary

The thing with this game is that while it lacks a large plot, there are many colorful characters that you can interact with. I do not think there is a single NCP in the game that you cannot chat to. Through these characters, you learn more about them and the plight of this world and its pollution problem.

The thing is, the game skirts around the edges of dealing with some pretty interesting social commentary. I think that had SLUDGE LIFE gone all in with this it could have been something pretty awesome instead of something that is just pretty interesting.

The Emotion Engine

If you get that reference you are awesome! What I mean here is that the visuals of SLUDGE LIFE for me have a kind of PS2 vibe to them. I know that the lazy comparison is a game like Jet Grind Radio due to it being cell-shaded and about graffiti, but this game lacks the bright color palate of that, which I get as we are dealing with pollution here. The game has a very interesting kind of art style and when I said it was like a PS2 game, I did not actually mean that in a bad way. I think the jaggy edges and the strange character designs are pretty cool actually.

Tagging And Bagging

The idea of the game is to tag the things that can be tagged. Most of the time, you will be able to look and see an area that you can tag, but the “puzzle” is figuring out how you get there. There is a lot of platforming in the game and it does require a bit of outside-of-the-box thinking in order to get to some of the tricker-to-reach areas. It can actually be a real rush when you finally figure it out and manage to tag an elusive spot.

Let Me Get My Laptop Out Of My Backpack

The UI of the game is a lot of fun and that is why I wanted to give it some special attention. You see, rather than just being a menu, you get your laptop out and manage things through that. You can even unlock some fun apps that you can mess around with when you have had enough tagging. I liked this and it certainly helped add to the game’s personality.

Pros:

• This game has some very weird characters
• It is cool that you can interact with pretty much everyone
• I liked how it felt when you figured out how to get to a hard-to-reach area
• The whole UI on your computer is cool

Cons:

• The story is very lacking
• It dances around social commentary, but never gets too deep