Deadlings

Genre: Auto-Runner

Players: 1

.

Review:

Deadlings is an Auto-Runner released on PC and mobile devices in 2014 and ported to Nintendo Switch in 2019. This game has players commanding a series of expendable zombies, guiding them through a series of deathtraps laid out in each of the game’s levels.

This game’s presentation makes use of simple, cartoony 2D visuals and a whimsical, forgettable soundtrack, with menus that seem like they were likely directly derived from the game’s mobile origins. Not great.

For the gameplay, players gradually gain access to different types of zombies, and must select which one to use and which direction to send him, afterwards interacting by controlling when he jumps. You could almost say that figuring out how to use the different types of zombies to get past hazards in the game’s increasingly elaborate levels is a puzzle of sorts, except very little of the challenge in this game comes from actually figuring out what to do, and most comes from actually executing that plan.

This is because Deadlings is a difficult and unforgiving game. Your zombies fall apart after one hit, and even touching a wall can kill them. Add to this the fact that there seems to be a bit of an input delay here, and it makes this game tedious and frustrating far more often than it is fun.

Ultimately, while the concept of Deadlings has some potential, the execution saps the fun out of the experience. Unless challenge and frustration are both things you crave, you’re better off leaving this one buried.

tl;dr – Deadlings is an Auto-Runner where players command various zombies through levels full of death traps. The presentation here isn’t very appealing, and the gameplay is overly frustrating and unforgiving. Most will be better off skipping it.

Grade: C-

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}

^{This month’s sponsors are Andy Miller, Exlene, Johannes, Homer Simpin, Ilya Zverev, Eli Goodman, Kristoffer Wulff, Gabriel Coronado-Medina, Francis Obst, and Seth Christenfeld. Thank you for helping to keep the reviews coming!}