Light Moon - A Review Of The Dark Sun

The Dark Sun is a game created by crunchynut

While I was scrolling on the featured page, I just clicked on The Dark Sun. Not thinking about it, I just played it. As I started to play it, I thought I might just click off the game because it was just a shooter. I am an amateur at shooters and at most times I do not understand them when I do play them. In reality though, I did not click off the game like I thought I would. Instead, I continued playing it until I beat the video game. Ironically, I just had a featured shooter on the page just a short time ago and I have 2 featured shooters so far. The funny thing is, crunchynut is actually the reason that I even made those featured shooters. Back in 2014, as I was looking through Youtube, I came across a video of his titled “Getting a Featured Shooter on Sploder [W/C] - Crunchynut.” In which he gave a bunch of tips on creating classic shooter games on Sploder. That video has inspired me to make the shooters that got featured.

Since I beat the game, that brought me to this review. I thought the game was really well-made. It really does its job well to hook the player in and start playing. As an amateur at playing shooters, I can tell you that the game provides a nice curve to beginners, amateurs, and pros. As it does not go too heavy on you right off the bat to steer new players and casual gamers away from the game. Rather, it gives you time and space for you to get used to the game as you get into it. I can see crunchynut sticks to his philosophies as he did outline this point in the tip video he made; which I mentioned earlier. Well, what he discussed definitely works, especially in this game.

The game is an action shooter game where you have to defeat all the enemies to beat it. The idea does seem scary at first, but it is not so bad as you get into it. You may also notice that there is an interesting design choice to the game. Rather than gimmicks, puzzles, and sequences; the game relies solely on the action and the shooting themselves. It also separates the areas into different sections you go through. Doing these things causes the player to have a more pleasant experience getting through the game and I think these are excellent design choices.

The placement is also well done, it was not too heavy on objects nor was too scarce on them either. The enemies were well spaced from each other as well. Also the design of the game was nice and even throughout. He did not look into the looks of the game that much and could have tacked on a bit more of the scenery however, but the nice structure to the game partly makes up for the lack of detail in its looks.

When I create classic shooter games, I try to go more linear and gear the game to a more relaxed approach as I feel that is the best way to go about designing those types of games. With The Dark Sun, it takes linearity one step further. The game is linear however, it gives free areas for you to move around along with it. So you can go about it any way you want. I find that pretty interesting to the game-play. Though some parts here and there might get too slow when it brings in narrower sections, as the game is usually free with what you do. That hardly brings the game down that much, nonetheless. Seeing that the game is usually fast paced and straightforward.

Along with that, here are my finishing reflections:

Pros Of The Game:

Basically Everything

Cons Of The Game:

Lack of detail in most of the scenery

Slows down in game-play in a couple sections

Scoring Of Game:

Game-Play - 9/10

Art and Scenery - 7/10

Playability - 10/10

Difficulty - 10/10

Challenges and Puzzles - 10/10

Score Overall- 9/10

The game was a really, really great game! I really enjoyed it. It definitely deserved its feature. The game was really nice to play through. Also, I am now interested in crunchynut's other projects. I am Master106, bye-bye!