Developed by independent French studio PANTANG, StarFlint: The Blackhole Prophecy is a mix of genres ranging from point & click to platform. The result is up to the certainly limited means, but containing a good dose of playful video passion.
For the little story, StarFlint: The Blackhole Prophecy is a project passed by the crowdfunding on Kickstarter. Three developers are essentially at work, with limited means, but with a universe to create. Like many projects resulting from this economic model, the reality turns out to be different from the initial promise of a mature point & click inspired by Lucas Arts.
The project, however, has a partial outcome, because the game is finally divided into two parts, with the addition of different gameplay less expensive to develop completing this space adventure. It is indeed a complete game with an end, but whose story must continue in a future second part.
Seize the ball on the leap
StarFlint: The Blackhole Prophecy is certainly a disconcerting game due to its many facets. After a colorful staging for camp universe, we embody the character of Fynn, whose replies dubbed in French reveal a humor as light as a butter diet. We are on the platform 2D rigorous even rough, uncompromising with its share of brain teasers and puzzles to progress.
The handling is not necessarily intuitive at first sight or even downright frustrating by inaccuracies, but the game becomes much more manageable when you integrate the logic of the gameplay. You have to be ready to repeat certain sequences a couple of times. The gun is an accessory, because infiltration is the main idea of this phase of the game. Finally, to be more precise, infiltration corresponds rather to seizing the right timing to make your way among the traps and the guards with no intelligence.
Without judgment of course, because it is a component of the game, like when you move elevators to change the route of the patrol and thus activate switches to unlock the next scene. We chain the tables, more or less difficult and we sometimes pay a few tedious round trips to unfold a story worthy of a space opera with its share of references and humor.
We change gameplay when we switch to Trixie, Flynn’s partner having to support his replicas, whose gameplay is more accomplished and above all more pleasant to handle. Double jumping gives more headroom, while the ability to throw a ball to teleport gives StarFlint’s platform dimension more bounce.
A travel
However, there is a goal to the maneuver and a common thread to unravel. StarFlint: The Blackhole Prophecy is typically the kind of game for which you have to go into the logic of the developer to progress. And it can be truly blocking if you don’t grasp it. Logic, observation, reflection, reflexes are therefore required to progress. Some will take out the sheet and the pen to find their way through a maze or make all the possible associations to unlock the way. I slip in passing that it is not necessary to really catch the critter, but you have to do it differently.
The atmosphere, the lines, the sets and the little story will push you to overcome these moments of frustration, especially as you get closer to the point & click phase. However, there are intermediaries, such as each arrival on a new planet having to go through a strategic turn-based combat beforehand. We’re on a little puzzle asking you to move your ship from space to space, inspired by the game Hitman GO, with the correct sequence to get to the exit.
The point & click aspect is indeed the initial promise, which only really arrives at the end of StarFlint. That’s a third of a game ending roughly in seven hours. I insist on this point, because it is the most disconcerting, this journey offers a heterogeneous experience, of which the beginning of the game is not representative. If the platform sequences are still present when Fynn puts on his orange outfit, we understand better at this time what the ambition of the developers was. The sets show a mastered graphic touch, featuring not-so-twisted puzzles for the genre. Fully dubbed in French, PANTANG Studio asked streamers and youTubers to lend themselves to the game.
Conclusion
Assuming that we are on a small independent production, we can take the necessary step aside to have a good time on StarFlint: The Blackhole Prophecy. So we skip the problems to live a great adventure in space. The atmosphere carried by the sets and the replicas, the puzzles, the story and the universe are good travel companions. People who supported the project Kickstarter did not have the point & click announced, but a game communicating enough passion for video games by its creators not to turn away from it.
Test carried out by Agahnon on PC from a version provided by the studio.
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