Sparklite

Sparklite: A Game with Zelda-Inspired Adventure

Sparklite is a game developed by Red Blue Games based in Durham, NC, USA. Red Blue Studio was founded in 2013 by twin brothers Edward and Lucas and Kevin joined them in 2015. The studio’s focus in its early days was on mobile games and they planned to develop a game for home devices and PCs, a dream game for them. Sparklite. It’s worth noting that the trio share a love for the Legend of Zelda games, particularly the Link to the Past and The Minish Cap versions, and we see the inspiration of the Zelda series palpably in this game.

The adventure takes place in the world of Geodia and everything in this world is connected to Sparklite stones, and these stones power all industries and tools in the game world. The inhabitants of this world have learned to use these gems to provide a source of energy for the renaissance of their world, but there are also greedy people who want to destroy the planet, extract this energy and achieve their goal of gaining control over it take over the world. This force is led by Baron and he tries to exploit the energy. To build a deadly war force and here comes the mission of Ada, the main character in the game. Ada is a genius engineer who uses her skills to develop her tools and help the residents eliminate the evil force. Ada is not alone because she has a companion, her little robot friend Wingnut.

The world changes due to earthquakes, which is a clever justification for the generated maps in the game.

The Challenging Gameplay of Sparklite

The game system is an action-adventure, also classified as a roguelike, with always randomly generated maps and an overhead camera. The game is highly challenging and involves permanent death, but is more merciful than some games of this type. If the character dies, you return to headquarters to try again. You lose all your tools except the Sparklite bricks, and that’s something unusual in such games where you usually lose everything. Ada’s main weapon is the key in close combat, transforming into a hammer when charged. There are many tools, such as a rocket that you can control remotely and use to solve some puzzles. The reaction and smoothness in controlling the character should be praised, and this gives the player the feeling that he… He takes responsibility for any mistake.

Exploring Caves and Conquering Enemies in Sparklite

There are caves and underground areas to explore. The enemies in the game are varied and the fighting method is different from each other, but most of the time you will attack four enemies, and they are the main enemies in each area, which always left me a little bored. They faced them, and they failed to defeat them Distributing enemies despite their diversity in the game. As for the leaders, they represent a very difficult and fun challenge. The game supports local and network play, and the other player moves the little robot Wingnut.

The game’s graphics are beautiful pixel art, and I liked some of the additional details, such as the movement of cloud shadows on the map, the reflection of characters on the water, and the movement of trees and grass in the air, which indicate the developer’s interest in a high-quality appearance.

Sounds are the game’s weakest feature. Some enemies have no sound, and if you use the tools menu when selecting a tool, you won’t know if it’s selected until you exit the list and see it on the screen, as there is no sound when selecting tools. According to the developer, the music in the game is from some GameCube games, but I didn’t find any music that stuck with me.

Final Thoughts on Sparklite

There are some problems, such as the annoying waiting screen when entering a cave or other area, and there is a bug that you can collect infinite Sparklite, and the reason is… While entering an area or enters a house and the waiting screen appears, you can return to the previous area and all Sparklites in the previous area will reappear!

In general, we recommend it to fans of auto-generating games as it offers a refreshing experience in these types of games.

The game was reviewed on the PC version that we received from the publisher.