Dolmen is a sci-fi action RPG game, full of terrifying creatures and time rifts. The game starts by throwing you into a new and unsettling planet full of dangerous creatures and an interdimensional rift that causes all sorts of chaos to ensue. While playing this game I experienced so many emotions from entranced to stressed and all the way back to impressed. It’s reminiscent of the movie Alien, which is a personal favorite, so I knew this spooky sci-fi game would be right up my alley. The developers at Massive Work Studio gave us the opportunity to try out the game, and here is what we found out.
Story
An interdimensional rift is created at a mining station in Revion Prime. The rift is assumed to be caused by the dolmen crystals. Your job is to collect these crystals, defeat the dangerous creatures and bring back samples to help contain the incident at the mining center.
The story, while intriguing, sometimes finds its footing only to trip itself. There is not any obvious direction in the game, with many places to explore and roam around, but this leads to an issue with furthering the game. It becomes easy to hit a wall when you don’t know how to progress the story, putting a major damper on the motivation to continue playing. The story and game lore are hidden throughout the environments on interactable computers and machines. The player is given small hints and clues sprinkled throughout the environment, which is an incentive to explore every nook and cranny to maybe find an important clue or hint. Again, it feels like you’re searching for the story rather than consistently finding it.
The story lends itself towards exploration, with many different areas that have items for crafting or to recharge your energy. There are elements of sci-fi and horror, and the environment ties together that combination of genres very well.
Gameplay
The core game mechanics in Dolmen are melee and ranged weapon attacks, blocking, consuming energy, and healing. There are heavy and light attacks, as well as different combos such as a jump attack or a double attack. There are various shields available, and if an attack is blocked at the right time the attack can be sent toward the enemy which is helpful. When fighting against the fire enemies, they project fireballs your way. By blocking the fireball, if aimed right it can send it back their way and cause them damage. Consuming energy is what renews your energy bar, which is used for shooting attacks as well as healing. The different weapons and weapon types you use have different benefits or enhancements for the character. Human technology is all about energy, Revian technology is all about organic enhancement and Driller technology is all about material enhancement. The longer you play with the different equipment and equipment types, the more benefits you get in these individual sections. The longer I played with Human technology, the farther I progressed the skills tree and my ranged attacks gave more damage.
Dolmen has a variety of options, with in-depth character customization, different weapon types that are available to craft as well as different elements that can be utilized. There are different reactors available for your character that correspond with the elements. There are fire, ice, acid and physical attacks that can correspond to the reactor used. The enemies all have elemental types and have a weakness to a certain element. There are several choices for your character from choosing gender, and weapon types as well as what level you want to start at. When choosing different genders, not only does the look of your character change but so does the voice acting which is a nice detail. As you kill more and more of the creatures, green blood collects on your character and it’s a cool touch that shows the developers really put a lot of thought and detail into their designs.
The levels gradually increase in difficulty as you progress through the game. You are first introduced to the bug-like enemies, and the levels are based around defeating them to explore more of the world. More and more enemies are introduced as you progress until you reach the final boss area that lets you respawn the enemies if you’re up to the challenge. After the final boss, you progress further into the world.
The gameplay mechanics were easy to understand and beneficial to the player. The skill trees in Dolmen give the players incentives to level up and change the types of weapons and armor used, and the customization is unique and has lots of variety. Overall, the gameplay is enjoyable and helps bring the players into the universe that’s created.
The difficulty was also a challenge in the gameplay design. I had trouble with the difficulty of the creatures at times, where they would gang up on me all at once or have perfect aim at the worst timing. I found myself dying a whole lot, which gave me some concern about if Dolmen was a bit too challenging.
Thankfully, one of the mechanics in this game is when you die, the character’s old body would have a hologram on the spot where you died, and you could salvage any lost items. This is a cool idea and ties together great with the theme of alternate realities and timelines. Now, related, and if you weren’t already aware, dolmens are large stone tombs or monuments meant to commemorate the dead. With the namesake of the game being Dolmen, and the real meaning of the word being a monument for the dead, you can tell the creators of this game put some thought into titling the game.
Regardless of the difficulty, the gameplay is easy to understand and get the hang of and keeps the players engaged, but it’s an uphill battle at times with its difficulty. For beginners, this will be a challenge but for more experienced gamers this might be the challenge you’ve been looking for.
Overall, the gameplay design and gameplay are the highlights of this game. The gameplay design works well with the story and sci-fi themes with the different reactors and futuristic concepts. The gameplay itself is easy to understand and utilize and keeps the players engaged and entertained.
Visuals and Audio
The visuals of Dolmen are very Lovecraftian, with grotesque bug creatures and zombie-like characters that are on fire attacking your character left and right. The settings are realistic and detailed, with ray tracing for the more high-tech space stations. Dolmen’s visuals match the theme of the game and gameplay, as there is a mixture of futuristic technology as well as more natural and gory environments. The environments range from flesh-like grounds and pathways to high-tech spaceships and mining stations. There are egg sacs that hang from the walls and ceilings, a mix of futuristic technology and infrastructure that seems to be falling apart, and pathways with spines running down the middle. All these additions to the environment designs make the world feel more alive and yet decrepit like you’re inside a massive creature of sorts and do give me a strong sense of Alien in the design.
Equally as Alien-esque is the audio. The sounds and music in Dolmen are ambient and eerie, and the quiet background music adds to the tension of the game. This tension caused by the silent music and louder sound effects added to the scares that the environment of this game lends itself to. The enemies in the game make such realistic growls and barks and hisses. It’s unsettling but fits so well with the visuals and enemy designs.
The presentation value of the game flows well from section to section and fits the overall feeling the story presents. The ambient music adds to the eerie feeling the environment presents, and the stark contrast between the music and the audio from gameplay add to the tension of the story. Overall, the presentation ties the story and gameplay together nicely.
Value
Dolmen is going on Steam for $39.99, and it’s a reasonable price for the quality of the visuals, replayability, and engaging gameplay. Dolmen had me on the edge of my seat at times, wondering if I could manage to dodge all sorts of acid attacks or get spooked by a creature that arrived out of nowhere. It’s engaging with strong game mechanics and futuristic themes that tie well into the different aspects of the game.
In Conclusion
Dolmen has wonderful visuals, interesting concepts, and a soundtrack that goes great with the feeling of the story. A sticking point could be the difficulty of the enemies and the issues with struggling to progress, which might make it hard for the players to stay engaged at times. That said, if you are looking forward to a challenge with tougher enemies than usual, alongside futuristic yet apocalyptic graphics, this is the game for you!
