Moons of Darsalon captures the zany slapstick of older platformers while introducing numerous tools to spice up the action. Though aesthetically beholden to a time and place, this is a worthy interpretation of a forgotten genre.
Moons of Darsalon adheres to a frustrating video game trope, yet strives to make it the core mechanic–and an enjoyable one at that.
Escort missions have been heavily derided in games. They are almost universally loathed for their insistence upon stripping the player of any former agency, requiring the pace to screech to a halt. Often a hapless and helpless NPC needs guidance towards some objective or point of safety. Players lead this NPC through whatever harrowing obstacles, trying to keep them from getting killed or spotted. What once was a game about bombastic gunfights or blazing speed and freedom is now condensed.
But why are they so loathsome?
As games encroached into three dimensions, it seemed as if developers were padding out time. Maybe they wanted players to care about a character they had written. Maybe it was intentionally meant to slow down the pace, allowing us to soak up the world and offer a different challenge. However, horrible AI pathing, scant checkpoints, and general frustration have often spelled doom for many an escort mission.
The worst sin an escort mission can commit is forcing the player into keeping up with an NPC that moves at a predetermined pace. They can’t be picked up and carried if injured. They need to fiddle with a door or lock while enemies flood in. Or the player fails the mission partway through and frustratingly knows where to go but the set path must be followed.
Moons of Darsalon‘s solo developer Daniel Manzano–known as Dr. Kucho! Games–obviously remembers a time when Lemmings was popular. It was a game where players guided cartoonish creatures away from their demise in increasingly challenging ways. When Oddworld Abe’s Oddysee arrived, it tasked players with rescuing and leading Mudokons away from imprisonment, often incorporating them into puzzles.
What Moons of Darsalon achieves is crafting escort missions into a game. But to call its few dozen levels escort missions is quite reductive. At its core, Moons of Darsalon is a puzzle game mixed with platforming and a hair of action. Its retro aesthetic is meant to invoke games of yore, where core conceits could be relatively simple but creativity ran deep.
Dr. Kucho! Games succeeds because the fundamentals of Moons of Darsalon are relatively basic. In doing so, a bounty of ripe ideas are able to sprout from this tree. What if the player is tasked with finding survivors and leading them to safety?
In Moons of Darsalon, players are on a rescue mission to save Darsanauts. These brave men and women have found themselves stranded on the various moons orbiting the planet of Darsalon (get it?). As the sole person up to the task of saving all these Darsanauts, the player seeks them out in levels of escalating complexity, avoiding environmental dangers and alien lifeforms.
Fundamentally it does not get any more complex than that. Ultimately, the player is required to find Darsanauts throughout a level and guide them towards a base of safety which acts as the finish line. The first chunk of Moons of Darsalon‘s levels are meant to introduce the numerous twists and tools that will be incorporated across the game to add both challenge and complexity.
Initially players learn that the Darsanauts will see the rescue pilot and by issuing a command to follow, they will follow. In the next levels, players learn the Darsanauts will not move if they are stuck in a dark enough area. The player can issue the commands to move left or right or to wait but are quickly taught that these move commands are in fact “shouted” by the pilot and every Darsanaut in range will obey the command. So the concept of targeting an individual Darsanaut and issuing a command is introduced.
Something as simple as singling out an NPC in a group is gently incorporated into one of the first levels of Moons of Darsalon because it will become a key component of the experience. Layering these fundamental mechanics and tricks is one of the things I appreciate most about the best puzzle games. Though a player’s intelligence shouldn’t be insulted, it is important for level designers to provide natural and logical examples of how to progress. It is okay if a tooltip pop ups–which Moons of Darsalon does–but the lesson needs to be embedded in a meaningful way.
Darsalon’s various moons also house cargo trucks, spaceships, and other vehicles that can be used to transport and traverse levels. Players will have access to a device that can shoot light sources at ceilings and floors to help guide Darsanauts. Dangerous aliens arrive with their own deadly weaponry and vehicles but players won’t be powerless. But perhaps the most unique tool incorporated into the game is the Ground Maker gun. This gun shoots out blobs that will attach to stable ground and form into a piece of terrain. At its simplest, players will be able to use the Ground Maker to create a bridge to cross a gap that can’t be jumped over. In more complex scenarios, new routes can be made to drive over, to protect from laser fire, and even bypass certain obstacles.
All the while, Moons of Darsalon works to expand the player’s understanding of its mechanics and constantly builds on them. In reality, its disparate parts are inherently simple. Collect followers and lead them to the end. Make new paths. Avoid obstacles. These are gamey elements but incorporated into challenging missions meant to make the player think. These building blocks are actually stepping stones to incredibly well-designed levels that test the mettle of puzzle solvers. Failure may be guaranteed as the Darsanauts or player die. But the snappy pace of levels allows for quick recovery and using knowledge from a prior death to advance.
Progression is relatively simple. Players have the option of brute-forcing their way through several levels but are likely going to be blocked by the minimum required stars needed to advance. Each level awards a player with three stars for accomplishing goals. Primarily a star is awarded for getting a minimum amount of Darsanauts to safety. But other requirements include completing a level in a specified amount of time, forgoing the use of certain tools, not having a Darsanaut or the pilot take damage, or other stringent tasks. Many of these require a deeper familiarity with Moons of Darsalon‘s ins and outs, so players should expect to return to levels not only to unlock more but to flex their newly embiggened brains.
Congratulations should be made to Dr. Kucho! Games for somehow managing to reign in the Darsanauts artificial intelligence in a way that makes it pliable but not stupid or strict. Yes, players will run into annoying moments where the AI seems to not want to obey orders or will run back and forth in place trying to piece out the code telling it what should be done but something isn’t connecting. And the game does have its share of bugs. Darsanauts and the player will get stuck in place, T-pose, clip through solid ground, and all around be a bit janky. But as I continued to lean into the semi-rubbery physics of Moons of Darsalon, I couldn’t help but appreciate how smart the Darsanauts seemed when I followed the rules laid out.
It might be frustrating that they get stuck in a small blob of darkness and don’t try and feel their way out. But darkness can also be a great tool to keep a Darsanaut static and away from danger while the player works. It’s a relief and humorous to watch AI companions follow and learn from the player’s actions. Little thought bubbles emit from everyone with emojis and select words to utter a joke or break the fourth wall and make a joke at the mechanics. By not taking itself too seriously, Moons of Darsalon makes failure less of a sting and more just another bit of slapstick.
Opting to be drenched in a CRT aesthetic, an older gamer like me delights in Moons of Darsalon‘s visuals and sound. Looking like that weird cross between claymation and CGI that some may remember from the Amiga CD32, the game is awash with colors and textures smeared across the screen. It may look messy at first but the important elements are bright, colorful, and always moving. Players can select a number of filters to not only apply scanlines to the game but bathe it in different color schemes. Honestly, I can understand why a modern player who never encountered these dated visuals would not be fond of them. But really opening up your eyes to the madness exposes the love and dedication towards recreating this lost style. Throw in crunchy bloops and blips and a chiptune soundtrack that produces sharp covers of recognizable songs and you have an admirable package.
Moons of Darsalon is devoted to not only its retro aesthetics but its expression of a latent genre. Players nowadays are almost trained to despise the possibility of escorting anything and anyone across a playable space, stripping them of the freedom any prior mechanics granted. But Moons of Darsalon is a puzzle game first and foremost, leading players along a zany path of success, terraforming levels and avoiding Darsanaut manslaughter through abject carelessness. It is simplistic in its message but wonderful in execution.
