Rating:

Redder is a peculiar platformer with a heavy emphasis on exploration. Everything is left up to the player to discover, including the goal of the game and how to progress within it. Does this makes it an intriguing game or a frustrating concept? You decide.

Full Review

Redder is an experimental platformer built by Dessgeega on the Adobe Flash platform and is released over Newgrounds as a browser-playable game. It puts you in the shoes of an astronaut marooned on the planet Mars after his spacecraft broke down in mid-flight. Presumably, the goal of the game is to find some way to repair your ship and get off the planet, but the game doesn't tell you anything explicitly - you are expected to find out for yourself what the exact goal of the game is, and how to achieve it.

The exploratory theme of the game is so apparent and executed with such consistency that there is no doubt that the lack of instruction and direction is intentional. However, this concept does make it very frustrating for first-timers to comprehend the game and might drive the less motivated players away without an early hook in the game. It personally took me several re-visits before I could understand and fully appreciate the game, after which I got thoroughly addicted to it.

Visually, the game is, of course, very red. However, it manages to still be visually compelling due to the author's efforts in creating effective and subtle variations in the color scheme - the orange-beige hue of the sky and the complimenting green highlights of circuitry breaks the crimson monotony and adds a lot of life to the otherwise bland environment.

There is a repeating soundtrack in the background that is actually very nice to listen to without sounding repetitive. Sounds effects are not awesome, but they work well enough to accentuate button presses and item pickup.

Notice how I haven't talked at all about how to play the game, that because by doing so in this special case would be a spoiler. This is an excellent game to play if you have enough patience with it, so I urge you to find out how the game is played yourself at this website.