Full Void

Full Void tries to answer to the fans' call for the good old classic platforms like Another World, but a lack of challenges and its short longevity make it hard to justify playing it more than once.

Full Void is a cool little indie game that makes the most out of its influences and offers up a nice mix of puzzling and platforming within its short playtime. While it doesn’t revolutionise the genre, it is a nice throwback to cinematic platformers of old that removes many of the more frustrating elements of its predecessors. If you remember the likes of Prince of Persia fondly then you could do a lot worse than jump into the Full Void.

Full Void is on the short side, but that’s no bad thing. There’s only so much you can do to keep someone invested in a dystopian narrative that does little to explain the world it resides in, and this adventure thankfully provides mystery, suspense, and climax in quick succession. I clocked in at just under two hours and came away satisfied. While the metaphors at work err on the self-indulgent side and the gameplay is relatively shallow, Full Void delivers a memorable experience about how it feels to have your childhood ripped away by forces you can’t control.

Full Void is a game that offers the same kind of experience as Limbo and Inside, Playdead's two masterpieces. The gameplay is equally divided between platforming stages and puzzles. Unfortunately, the game lacks originality and underlying quality. Full Void is fun, but in the three hours it takes you to complete it never surprises.

Full Void is worth playing for its best moments alone, and the artistic vision that underlies its crumbling world provides a consistently engaging visual feast. Nonetheless, it's hard not to wish that the gameplay more frequently rose above its comparatively mundane tendencies, especially considering a slight runtime that shouldn't necessitate much filler. Players looking for an exciting challenge or brain-teasers to rival the best adventure games might not be completely satisfied, but those compelled by the look of the game will no doubt find plenty to love in its beautiful artwork and atmospheric design of Full Void.

Full Void has just enough peaks and troughs to keep your interest, well, piqued. Its eye-catching pixel art and moody soundtrack set the perfect tone for this dystopian adventure, and its keen sense of challenge gives it the bite that so many other cinematic platformers often lack. Considering the developers' previous work has been limited to mobile and arcade game compilations, this is an impressive debut in a new genre for the team at OutOfTheBit, and I hope we get to see more from them in the future (albeit one that's hopefully not overrun by Vortigaunt AI monsters).