I just saved the world from nuclear annihilation in "D3AD HAND"!

New game!

Duck Made Of Wood is a very charismatic solo developer. I bumped into him at AdventureX in London last November and sat down to play his game D3AD HAND. I didn't finish this hour long game there and then, because there were lots of other games and people to check out, but I promised him I'd definitely play it at home because I was quite enjoying it and loving the humor, and he even was so kind to gift me a free copy! So finally, here I am, making good on that promise! (Sorry it took me so long, Duck!)

Monday mornings...

I'm Yuri, a Soviet military man in charge of a nuclear missile base. My direct supervisor there is a white cat with a black "mustache" patch under its nose named Stalin. The systems at the base should be automatic, but, you know, it's still man-made... So it's my job to make sure no missiles are fired accidentally, leading to World War 3 and total annihilation.

Let's keep these things closed, shall we?

But before I can do my job, I have to find my way inside, which takes a couple of fun puzzles. There's a gear puzzle, and a code puzzle, and a password you have to uncover. The game is actually full of these mechanical/logical puzzles and it's perfectly balanced with the more traditional inventory puzzle stuff. D3AD HAND also has cool pixel art, full Russian-accented voice overs, and funny dialogues which often break the fourth wall, but not to excess. I particularly enjoyed the sound of crunching snow beneath your boots as you walk, and the synth soundtrack.

Shoddy piping...

As soon as I've entered the base, a pipe bursts and steam is blocking my way, so I have to turn some valve wheels to shut down the system. Then I finally meet Stalin, my boss so to speak. But the cat refuses to come into action until I've fed it, and apparently only eats caviar-flavored cat food...

Thankfully this isn't a translation game...

Then all hell breaks loose, a missile is about to be launched and I have to reset all systems to prevent catastrophe. With a fun series of puzzles I'm able to save the day!  I'm not quite sure how some of the puzzles actually worked, like the one with the seismic sensors, but I'm happy I seemed to click the right buttons by chance and didn't get totally stuck on it. It was rather a short experience, lasting only for an hour, but there's more to come with the second part of the story, R3D STAR! 

Plenty of logical puzzles in this game!

So I'll be back soon with a continuation of my playthrough. I've already heard R3D STAR is more extensive and even offers Stalin the cat as a second playable character, so that's definitely something to look forward to!

You can find D3AD HAND and R3D STAR together on Steam and on itch.io!

and allow me to buy more games and write about them on my blog!