Dead Ink Review – 3D Printing Violence

Every now and then, you’ll stumble on an indie title clearly inspired by something more mainstream. These inspirations aren’t kept a secret, and more often than not the developers are huge fans of the games the title is inspired by. These titles are usually huge tributes to the original, and often expand upon established mechanics to make something new and interesting out of otherwise familiar gameplay.

Dead Ink is a great example of this. Proudly displaying the “souls-like” qualifier in the game’s description on Steam, it isn’t hard to guess what franchise the game pays tribute to. Dark Souls fans will instantly find familiarity in the game, especially with the game’s fundamental mechanics.

For starters, Dead Ink uses Dark Soul’s famously simplistic combat. Light and Heavy attacks, dodge rolling, blocking and high damage make for an easy-to-grasp but deadly and hard-to-master combat system. Attacks and their animations have physics to them, requiring special positioning from the player to avoid slamming your sword into a wall and cutting your swing short.

Dead Ink also borrows and expands upon a familiar Dark Souls concept in its main game mechanic. The souls system, which Dark Souls players are intimately familiar with, makes a return in Dead Ink by the way of Ink. Much more than a reprinted (pun intended) version of the Dark Souls mechanic however, Ink is expanded on and fundamentally important to both the gameplay and the story of Dead Ink. To understand why, you need to delve into the game’s unique setting.

In Dead Ink, your consciousness has been transferred to a neural network, sacrificing your physical body to gain immortality in cyberspace. Much less than the limitless internet, however, you’re more like connected to a dial-up service, as the game will remind you with its use of incredibly satisfying retro computer sounds as well as the way your printers all seem to be physically plugged into one another.

Yes, I said printers. In Dead Ink, your body’s weapons, and other gear are all printed at giant 3d printers using some sort of bright yellow printing fluid called… well, Ink. Without Ink, your consciousness has no body to attach to, being left with nothing but a computer interface to interact with. Therefore, the substance is naturally incredibly valuable to you, as well as all of the other printed people roaming along the tower.

Just like in Dark Souls, Ink is a resource you gather by defeating enemies, and it’s lost on death. However, in addition to needing to acquire gear, you also need to live. Your body can’t be printed if you’re out of Ink.

Your goal in Dead Ink is to descend a massive tower. As you get lower and lower, you’ll unlock new recipes for weapons, gear, and other goodies to help with the descent, and you’ll also find more printers that you can use as save points. However, each printer needs to be manually stocked with Ink. The amount of Ink you have stored at a checkpoint determines how well your build can be spawning at that printer. If you don’t have enough Ink for everything you’re trying to spawn with, you’ll have to backtrack to a printer with more Ink or spawn in with less stuff.

One of the first things you’ll notice in Dead Ink is the total lack (at least as far as I’ve gotten) of any music. The game’s unique presentation gives a kind of eerie, lonely vibe, one that I felt fit the limited narrative presented in Dead Ink. The game’s story, seemingly designed around the Ink mechanic, is a somewhat creepy one that could easily dip its toes into horror if the developers wanted it to.

Dead Ink’s use of a top-down perspective is another unique presentation tool the game uses to mix things up. Often, the only way forward in Dead Ink is to drop down upon precarious ledges, hidden by your character’s perspective. Exploration and trust in one’s self is paramount to progression, especially when it comes to these drops.

Both the gameplay and narrative seem to have been built around a Dark Souls fan’s interest in a particular gameplay mechanic (being the souls, obviously.) That the developers could take such a simple mechanic and expand on it so much is one thing, but to build an entirely unique story around it (and in a different genre to boot) is really cool. The gameplay and narrative of Dead Ink both reflect the creativity of the developers, which is nothing short of impressive. That’s the main word I’d use to describe Dead Ink; Impressive.

The most impressive part of the game is how well it justifies itself with such a simple premise. After the intriguing introduction to this world, there are no real side missions or goals. You simply want to descend the tower and see how far you can get before dying, hoping to get further down the next time.

In that regard, it reminds me of another game I used to play a lot, Let It Die. Similarly, Let It Die was a souls-like all about trying to get to the top of a tower, crawling one floor at a time. Let It Die, however, was decidedly more difficult, as the free-to-play game had an arcade-style “buy extra lives” system. While that is certainly not present in Dead Ink, the simple gameplay loop of seeing how far you can go in a hostile tower is equally as addicting as it was in Let It Die.

All and all, I wasn’t expecting Dead Ink to be such a solid title. The addictingly simple gameplay is complimented incredibly well by a unique idea and a phenomenal presentation. The game’s setting is rich and the use of sounds and mazes make it easy to stay engaged as you fight for that precious, life-giving Ink.

Try Hard Guides was provided with a PC review copy of this game. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles in the Game Reviews section of our website! Dead Ink is available on Steam.