Life of Delta Review

Star Wars has a lot to answer for, especially in regards making robots (or droids) funny and heartwarming – and sometimes mean killing machines. There are moments in the franchise where I loved those little metal chunks more than some of the human characters. 

Life of Delta is a game where you will find and discover a whole myriad of different robot chums, coming your way through a sci-fi story in a place that could be in a galaxy far far away. It’s a point-and-click adventure that puts you in the metal shoes of a little robot searching for his master. Let’s do the robot. 

I’m afraid I have to let you know that in Life of Delta the future hasn’t been the nirvana we all hoped it would be. The nuclear holocaust has destroyed the world as we know it, leaving behind a desert of radiation. All that survived were some very unique robots and a strange band of malicious lizard people. The latter beings rule the world and aren’t very nice in doing so. 

Delta is our hero and at the start of the game we find out that he was a little service robot about to be decommissioned – which in this story means being placed in a vat of acid. He gets rescued by another robot called Joe, but for his crime, he is hounded by the authorities and is taken away. Delta – from his hiding place – sets out to find Joe and help rescue him. 

The story is a good one and it keeps you interested and intrigued all the way through. Delta is a lovely character; most definitely one you will want to spend time with. There are some other brilliant characters and robots you meet along the way too, all fun and superbly written. The whole setup is awesome in fact, but it’s in the visual storytelling and detail in the design that make this an amazing place to walk around in and explore. 

Life of Delta works like a straightforward point-and-click adventure. You have to click where you want Delta to move to and if you press RB you can find all the things on the screen you can interact with or speak to. This works well sometimes, but at other moments not quite so well. There isn’t a tutorial to help you at the start so it took me a while to even find the inventory. It turns out that when you collect an item and want to use it with something. you drag it from the top of the screen to where you want to use it. This – as is very standard for these kind of games – comes with the age-old problem of not being able to use a more accurate mouse on console. Throughout my time with Life of Delta I’ve been left trying to drag things, only for them not to work immediately.  

The game comes with a load of puzzles that you will need to try and work through, as well as some sort of fetch quests. The puzzles are clever and range from the familiar ones (pipe puzzles) to some very complicated ones. I do think that the more challenging ones are interesting, but also fear that it is too easy to get stuck in some, especially without any instructions.

Whatever, there’s no doubt that the visuals in Life of Delta are just sublime. If you have watched The Mandalorian and taken in the end credits with the hand-drawn visuals, then you are getting close to the art style in this game. It is beautifully crafted and intricately designed, in turn capable of creating a stunning world full of wonder. I loved exploring this world, taking in the details on each screen. The characters themselves are brilliantly made and every robot is characterful, ensuring that you will want to spend time with them. 

The soundscore is pretty amazing as well, and it adds to the beauty you see on the screen. The vocals use a made-up language with subtitles that fits in with the storytelling perfectly. 

Thanks to the visuals, storytelling, and sound, Life of Delta may well suck you in. Personally, I loved the exploration, the wandering around the environments and seeing the narrative progress. Unfortunately, some of the gameplay mechanics are a bit rough around the edges and it’s not always accurate enough. The puzzles are good, although perhaps a bit too challenging at times, yet if you want to explore a brilliant world then Life of Delta is definitely worth your time.