The child othercide
Today we have the first of Lightbulb Crew's dev diary videos. We were introduced to the Daughters and their mission to save humanity from the Suffering.
THE CHILD OTHERCIDE CODE
We reviewed the game on Xbox One with a code provided by the publisher.Othercide was announced last week as a tactical RPG steeped in horror.
THE CHILD OTHERCIDE PS4
Othercide is available on PC, PS4 and Xbox One. Its art style may be beautiful, but it doesn’t make playing the game any more enjoyable.
![the child othercide the child othercide](https://indiefaq.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Othercide.jpg)
Ultimately, Othercide has its moments but its core gameplay is so repetitive that, even with its turn-pushing twist, you’ll have to fight the grind to get any fun out of it. In a similar vein, Othercide‘s message text is insultingly small it’s hardly a win for accessibility. Seeing new monsters lumber onto the screen is a treat, though occasionally foes can be hard to pick out, even if you turn on colourblind mode. And using your gunslingers to take out another gun-wielding enemy is fun, particularly if they’re one turn away from blasting your head off. Nevertheless, taking down my first boss was a real rush, even though I’d had to go through seven times just to accumulate the buffs I needed to win. “ Othercide has its moments but its core gameplay is so repetitive that… you’ll have to fight the grind to get any fun out of it” I knew that the injuries they’d receive would, cumulatively, put them in the graveyard, so why bother? Even less encouraging was that, during the same loop, I found myself on the same battlefield, fighting monsters who started in the exact same position. I eventually stopped naming my NPCs because I couldn’t get attached to them. Again, this sounds interesting, throwing up a moral dilemma or two, but it rapidly becomes a pain. So if it’s that easy, why wasn’t I able to just whizz through the game? Because of another of Othercide‘s innovations in order to heal your units, you have to sacrifice others. Boss battles aside, I won most fights by staying put and letting my foes obligingly wander towards me. Some enemies, stupid as they are, will spawn in right behind you, making it pointless to employ any complex strategy. All the foes I encountered made no use of cover and happily ambled into my line of fire, so dispatching them was wholly unsatisfying. Instead of sporting any decent AI, Othercide uses a set of board game-style rules, which are detailed in its codex. “There are some neat ideas here, but they’re undermined by Othercide’s tedious gameplay”
![the child othercide the child othercide](https://cdna.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/028/889/350/medium/alexandre-chaudret-oc-illustration-events-adrenaline02-viewer.jpg)
The snag is, your enemies have all the intelligence of a house brick. Sounds like a great way to outsmart your enemies, right? Not quite. Take the way you can push enemy turns back with the game’s dynamic timeline system, giving your characters a chance to get their attacks in first and, in some cases, pull off combo attacks. There are some neat ideas here, but they’re undermined by Othercide’s tedious gameplay. Othercide’s time loop means that every run starts from the beginning of the five or so levels your squad members retain their experience and level, but you can only resurrect a select few. Instead, it was slowly driving me up the wall. I wasn’t laughing when I started my seventh run through Othercide, however.
![the child othercide the child othercide](https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/33544040/9a78bf8a2a92bc4b4e2d86197929a70eab90accb.jpg)
“ Othercide clearly wants you to take it seriously, as evidenced by the magnificent, monochrome art style” But it tries a little too hard the sixth time my ethereal supervisor told me “We delve deep into the Dark Corners” – note the capitalisation – I had a problem keeping a straight face. Othercide clearly wants you to take it seriously, as evidenced by the magnificent, monochrome art style you find yourself facing up to plague doctors, shoggoths and all manner of other monsters. You can spawn additional daughters, naming them in the process, which is why my second squad consisted of Mercy, Temperance and Farty Fran. There are three classes: gunslingers, sword fighters and shield wielders.
![the child othercide the child othercide](https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/028/889/389/large/alexandre-chaudret-oc-illustration-events-murk02-viewer.jpg)
Either way, you’re tasked with controlling a squad of up to three female fighters, dubbed “daughters”, and leading them to turn-based victory against the forces of darkness. Othercide‘s premise is a little muddy at times it’s said the world is in danger, at others it’s suggested the game’s time loop takes place within a small child’s mind. A mash-up of X-Com, Dark Souls and Groundhog Day, Othercide is less than the sum of its parts.