Xeodrifter Review

All of Xeodrifter is unfriendly: The creatures that roam each of four explorable interstellar bodies. The acidic clashing of colors. The cryptic self-teaching design. The loneliness.

Nothing reaches out to help. Everything is hostile. A star-faring humanoid, stranded without a crucial warp core, braves insectoid monsters and astringent seas in a panicked search for a possible return home.

This is neo 8-bit, strong on saturation and contradictory color mixing, if compelling in its own startled type of pacing. The helmeted Xeodrifter – if it has a name – hurriedly maneuvers in a short term exploration of each nearby planet with movement boundless and undoubtedly frenzied. Food, oxygen, first aid; supplies are likely short. Xeodrifter must dispose of tutorial pleasantries for a cutthroat story without words or instruction. Figure it out.

It’s mean. It’s bleak. It should be.

Don’t stop running

Desolation and desperation are tantamount to this ferociously fast and punctual journey. To strategize is only for those who have time – Xeodrifter has none. Forward motion is densely controlled, part of a philosophy shared with developer Renegade Kid’s previous Mutant Mudds. So it goes with Xeodrifter, battling motion through an almost hypnotic (albeit faster) puzzle-like lens. Each step could be doom, cruelly picking at the itch to hastily explore while a surrounding reality dictates otherwise.

No one would likely label Xeodrifter original. Rather, it’s fashionable. Xeodrifter’s intelligent traits, namely the synchronicity between all four worlds, are a trendsetter which brings a touch of the complexity (if softened) from the frequently hoary days of DOS PC gaming. Touch screen functionality, jammed with compartments, buttons, lights, and shimmering indicators is marvelously intuitive and initially daunting as if meant for early multi-press keyboard input on a VGA monitor. Instead, it’s just smart.

Missing is depth, but then again, depth would only slow pacing to a saunter. However, this miniature handheld world(s) never desires scope beyond what is possible in a small development cycle. Fauna and lifeforms, despite evolving in divided ecosystems, are identical. Only their apparently caustic atmospheres – more identifiable as gameplay markers than the air’s harshness as likely intended – bare unique forms.

Scale is difficult to judge. Too much and Xeodrifter loses the promptness needed for the sense of anxiety. Or, maybe it turns this ten or so pixel high sprite into an even more improbable hero/heroine. Less, and threat is all together diminished.

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But, “what ifs” are often naïve. What Xeodrifter provides in a matter of hours is spirited and sharp if not particularly daring. Exploration and the activation of reward centers when abilities are found are as pleasant here as they are anywhere else.

The genre has certainly become safe, rarely fond of progression or expansion beyond these core systems. Given the throwback veneer, Xeodrifter doesn’t necessarily need design momentum. Rather, the purpose is to soak up a bevy of nostalgia and do so – to flattering levels – while delivering an isolationist perspective with pixels, not polygons. Insofar as Xeodrifter succeeds, the messaging is clear: It is never the technology which instills purpose, meaning, or intent. They’re always achievable goals even within the most diminutive of scopes.