Cuba's 'first major indie game' is a gorgeous platformer about bad decisions and environmental catastrophe, so long as you can get over the checkpoints

GamesActionCuba’s ‘first major indie game’ is a gorgeous platformer about bad decisions and environmental catastrophe, so long as you can get over the checkpointsWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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(Image credit: Dear Villagers)

A figure with glowing eyes and bloody hands stares into the camera.

(Image credit: Dear Villagers)

A cuboid creature looks shocked as its guts pour from its stomach.

The vibes are impeccable, and they’re what keeps pulling me back to the game. Don’t get me wrong, the platforming isn’t bad, but the game hasn’t felt like anything I’ve not played before in the hour or two I’ve spent in it so far.

It plays, mostly, like a kind of slower take on the old Abe’s Oddysee/Exoddus games, or maybe the 2D Prince of Persias. Your character—Antar—is just a kid in a kind ofshift dressafter all. His combat ability begins and ends at jumping high and crouching, making every enemy more of a puzzle than a straightforward combat encounter.

Mostly. Because Saviorless does do something a bit interesting in the gameplay I’ve seen so far: Every so often, Antar takes a nap, at which point you transition into controlling a 10-feet tall horse demon named Nento, who is both very keen on usurping Antar as the game’s protagonist and who actually has some limited combat skills.

(Image credit: Dear Villagers)

A trio of figures sits, one of them says “A good narrator will never allow a protagonist to achieve his goals."

Where Antar’s boss fights consist of dodging abilities while you use mechanisms in the level to get the upper hand, Nento’s playstyle sees you dodging their attacks before moving into slash at them with your claws. A little later on, you gain access to a kind of third player character who has some of Nento’s combat moves as well as an airdash, spicing up the traversal and combat a little as you continue to make your way through the world.

My only real problem with the game so far is its checkpoints. Like I said up top, I’ve seen the same parts of Saviorless quite a few times in my playthrough. That’s not because the game reuses assets, it’s because Antar dies in a single hit from anything and Saviorless has a wearying tendency to send you backjust a little furtherthan you’d like when he does.

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(Image credit: Dear Villagers)

The end of a boss fight in Saviorless. The protagonist—a demonic, horse-headed figure—looks weary.

It’s not egregious, you aren’t restarting the whole level or anything, but it’s my firm belief that any game that kills you in a single hit and requires tight, careful timing needs to be extra generous with its checkpointing. The game isn’t too hard, but you will definitely bite it a few times unless you’re a true prodigy, at which point you’ll have to spend longer than you want getting back where you were (and, perhaps worst of all, going through the same short cutscenes all over again).

But these are just quibbles. On the whole, I’ve enjoyed luxuriating in Saviorless' pitch-perfect vibes so far. If this is what we can expect from Cuban game development, consider me incredibly eager to see more.

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