Infected Shelter

Review

That’s it, it happened, and it was pretty awful to live through that time. Of course, I am talking about the Apocalypse. To make thing worst, a punk faction attacked your base and kidnapped your medic, gunsmith, Vr and supply specialists. Oh, the chieftain is really peeved about this and ordered both fit and not-so-fit people to take up arms and liberate the most important person of the camp. But let me tell you, it’s not going to be easy to rescue them as they will have to fight infected people, mutants, army personnel and massive bosses in Infected Shelter.

Infected Shelter is a Hack and slash / side scroller game developed and published by Dark Blue Games Ltd. and is currently available of the Steam platform as an Early Access title.

Let me say it up front . . . what a fun and addictive game this is! In this early build, you can play in the single player or local co-op modes. It will include three randomly generated levels with three stages each and one boss fight per level.

First, you’ll have to choose two out of four available characters you’d like to play (the other two characters will be available upon the game’s full release). It will be either a crazy Ninja guitarist or a grandpa in his wheelchair with his aid pushing him along. How hilarious is that? Mind you, he is a pretty badass old dude. What is interesting is that of three different pairs (the old dud and his aid) or the Ninja guitarist and each of them will have a specific trait and be dressed differently each time you restart a game. The traits can be positive or negative, but the type of dress will give your characters attribute points; one type of clothing might give you more points for critical hit and luck while another might give you more resistance to fire and better hit points with a specific weapon. Right there, you’ll know that the game has plenty of re-playability, as each of your runs will be different to the previous one.

Your camp will be very empty on your first couple of runs but as you rescue more and more people, you’ll be able to choose weapons, supplies, potions and skills before entering the wild beyond the camp.

From then on it will be an absolutely a mad house! You’ll be fighting all sort of enemies, including zombie animals such as tigers, gorillas and bats, as well as several types of infected people with or without arms, and of course military personal to spice it up even further for you. They can all appear on the section at once; if that’s the case, the military will first attack the infected before turning their interest toward the poor old dude or the guitarist. It’s a fun hack and slash time, let me tell you, and you’ll have up to 50 different types of executions. It’s very easy to do as you have to wait until the enemies have their health bar low and are stunned (stars spinning around their heads). Make sure that the enemies don’t get too close to you as they might pin you down and you’ll have to click on a key or your gamepad button as fast as possible to free yourself.  You’ll face some onslaught at times and one way to inflict great damage is to use one of the four skills available to you. Beware though, it will take some time to regenerate before being able to re-use it.   

As your enemies falls, they’ll drop blueprints, runes, weapons, sheriff stars and infected bits on the floor. Most of the stages have a house or a room (underground) where you can purchase food, runes which will add points to your skills, along with relics and event pets to help you in your next battle. You’ll have to use the infected bits to create a skill, but you’ll only be able to do so when you meet the chieftain somewhere within each of your runs.

The boss’s fights are well-balanced in my opinion, but that might also depend on what weapons you have on hand, your skills and other goodies to fight them. All you need to know is that you must beat them three times in a row to win the fight. Come on, Old Dude, you can do it!

Personally, I am very impressed with what I’ve seen so far and can’t wait to see the next update.

Graphically, the game looks great and the soundtrack is fun. You can play with either your mouse and keyboard or your gamepad. You also have the option to remap your keys on the keyboard and gamepad. There is only one resolution at this stage.