Review: Awaria – Great Stories & Challenges in a Free, Tight Pack

Awaria is a tense game with split-second decisions. Although its levels are brief, you’ll spend every moment gauging distances, examining your needs, and trying to figure out how to overcome the dangers that constantly lurk you. This probably sounds a little more cruel than generator maintenance, but when ghostly smiles appear, you’re inclined to do everything you can to get the job done. Even if you die a lot during the use of this bullet, kiss them away.

So you are responsible for repairing the generator to maintain the shields that prevent the appearance of ghosts. However, seeing that they have been destroyed, the apparitions have arrived and do not want you to fix everything. There are a series of ghosts that will attack you throughout the game, each with its own special attack pattern that you need to dodge. The ghosts will try to catch you and hit you, launch omnidirectional shots around the arena, leave traps on the floor that you must follow closely to trigger them, etc. These tend to change from season to season. levels or quickly stack as ghosts work together on harder levels.

If you want to survive a level in AwariaYou need to repair the generator in each room a certain number of times to restore the shields and ensure your safety. Luckily, all the parts you need for repairs are in the same room as the generator. However, parts delivery machines often have some quick action that causes them to spit out the goods. Some need you to click them manually and then wait for the part to be done. Some require parts from other machines before they give you the complete thing you need. Not only that, you won’t know what parts you need until you click on the broken generator itself.

Now each level is contained within a single screen, so these things don’t seem so far apart. Once you know what parts you need and which machine will deliver them, you can quickly plan your route. Which is good, because the ghosts have been relentless in their attacks since the beginning. They never abandon you, so you’ll need to figure out the best path to take to help you avoid ghostly attacks while preparing machines for repair parts or picking up hidden items. that part to transfer to the generator. While the small levels make planning that route simple, the small stages also put you in constant danger as there’s only so much space around enemy attacks. And stage hazards, why not add some more?

This led to some extremely tense matches throughout Awaria as you continually adjust your course on the fly. You always need to think about what parts you need and how you will access them. You’ll need to change that plan when one of the ghosts rushes at you or if they place some hazard in your path that you now need to avoid. Juggling this while glancing at generators to see what parts they need, stockpiling which machines need to be primed to craft parts, and doing so while a nimble ghost is Filling a room with fireballs is exhilarating, dizzying, and incredibly challenging. Did I mention that you also often need to have your generator repaired within a limited time?

Luckily, there are several difficulty levels that you can choose from each time you start a level. Easy mode gives you a drone that can revive you after you’ve been hit, but has a short cooldown before it can be used again. Standard gives the drone a ten second cooldown (basically forever when things get busy). Hard cuts the repair time limit and you die in a single hit. Even playing on Easy Mode is quite difficult (though very doable if you’re persistent), so don’t expect ghostly kisses to come your way without effort.

You’ll likely be ready to get down to business, as the game’s story and character interactions hint at an interesting overarching lore somewhere beyond the need to kiss the various ghosts involved. The character keeps breaking things here. While Awaria doesn’t spend much time on its story, it offers just enough to entice you to keep playing. The art style also creates some cute, evocative characters, and it’s fun to see how well they get along with each other. Despite the whole thing where they’re trying to kill you.

Awaria Just a tight, powerful package. Its tiny levels are packed with challenge thanks to spooky abilities, hazards, and part retrieval mechanics. Each moment feels like you need all of your focus to get through it, and you’ll have to go through multiple stages to try to get it done. The story and characters have a lot of charm despite only being on screen for a few seconds between acts. Different difficulty levels give you something to strive for, whether you want to challenge yourself or if you just want to see the ending. This is a great little game that costs nothing to play, so you have no reason not to play it right now.

Awaria available on computers via Steam.

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