Hark! A Survival Game! If you cringe and cower at any indie game that bills itself as ‘survival’ then I ask that you, dear reader, take a second and read this review. Developer CCCP’s and Plug In Digital’s Dead in Bermuda brings us a game not where you run around as a naked madman building weapons and crude buildings as fast as possible, but a rather thoughtful title that rewards critical thinking and practiced approaches. Parts survival game, parts RPG, parts text adventure. You won’t win this one by screaming your way through the apocalypse, instead it’s time to slow down and manage the health of eight survivors who cling to ever thinning threads of hope.
Dead in Bermuda starts you off with a group of vacationers about to take an unwelcome detour. After their plane crashes, presumably somewhere within the confines of the Bermuda triangle, they establish a camp and start working towards their collective survival. Each of the Bermuda 8 carries a talent they’re expected to contribute to your burgeoning tropical society. A few examples include Alejandro, for lack of a better word the ‘leader’, Bethany, a doctor better suited for exploration than research, Jacob, an old survivalist and Illyana, an optimistic young girl who enjoys book learnin’. Your job, player, is to decide who is suited best to which tasks, be it salvage or repair or exploration. There are also ‘discussion’ events that will advance the story and progress your camp, or impede it for that matter, and chances to explore the wild for tools, food and clues.
If only it were as simple as exploring and hashing out your personal problems. The game also demands you keep track of five devilish maladies; Hunger, Injury, Sickness, Fatigue and Depression. Allowing any one of those negative traits to cap 100 will ensure a quick death for that character. It has the echoes of other survival games. Your Zomboids and Rusts, the ARKs and Darkwoods. You have to eat, you have to gather, you have to sleep, you have to research, you have to build. While a familiar model I’m glad to say Dead in Bermuda at least plays with these familiar tropes it in new ways. You’re managing a community instead of just one hapless avatar. Each person has an ideal role, save for one character who feels designed to just get in your way (or perhaps I read him wrong and he carries that Final Fantasy Blue Mage nature of ‘build him how you like). You can level up each character and use items to manipulate their stats and generally make them a better citizen. It’s almost like playing LOST or Falling Skies, actively overseeing the establishment of a society and trying to get each individual to play nice. It’s a nice, fresh take on an otherwise tired genre.
Game progression is broken up into three phases. Day, Afternoon and Night. The first two phases are where you’ll get stuff done, and thankfully interacting with locations, objects and individuals you’ve discovered is “free of charge.” That being said these interactions will often cost you a stealth or combat check, and that influences if you take a hit to Sickness or Injury. During the Night phase it’s time to get your grub on and, depending on your actions, advance the story. A lot of the game is tracking a ton of numbers and dragging survivors around between phases to slot them in where they’re best suited. Researching nifty technology for your island probably won’t take a lot out of baby Illyana, but shoving the badass Julia into the jungle time after time will exhaust her quick, which means on your next phase it’s time for you to move her to the rest area for nap time. Don’t forget to feed your fire and check on your water levels. Seriously. Don’t forget. This one slight oversight can mean some awful plagues of the mind and body later.
It’s all manageable at first, that feeling of being overwhelmed starts to creep on you the more you progress. Not being able to feed an individual will have a few more consequences than them simply being hungry for a night. Not researching the appropriate tech will cause you to lose out on some valuable, necessary and life saving items. When a character dies it further cuts off their story, whatever mysteries and secrets they might hold… Not to mention all that stat and skill investment. Besides, why wouldn’t you want everyone to survive the island? With the way negative stats increased it felt like no matter what I did, I could never get “ahead”, just manage or not manage. I think that’s fair and I believe it cements the overall feel of desolation and desperation the game wants you to experience.
I made comparisons to LOST and Falling Skies, and this game really embodies that entire survival genre of television shows which includes series such as The 100 and Walking Dead. The story of Dead in Bermuda is structured much like those. A group of seemingly unassuming average Joes and average Janes who had their world flip turned upside down. Some of these survivors are sincere and naive, pretty much exactly who they say they are, others hold their pasts close to their chest and are full of brooding secrets that perhaps make them valuable to your camp as a construct, but dangerous to your other survivors as an individual. In fact discussion results will impact how they get along with each other, and you should be careful not to mix your cats in with your mice.
There’s a mystery to the island that strings you along in the same ways “Aliens that abduct children” or “cause of zombie outbreak” or “mystery to the island” might string you along. Once you nail your balancing act of who is best suited for what, who should take their breaks when, all you really have left is trying to resolve the not only the enigmas of the island but the hidden depths of your characters. Unfortunately there’s a bit of simplicity to the way the story is told. I suspect this is partly due to the fact the developers behind DiB are French, so English isn’t their native language. I had to enjoy the story for its inferences more than its actual delivery.
The art style in Dead in Bermuda is a bit rough, going for a look that’s quirky and modern, yet it carries a certain charm and the character design reminded me of the graphic designs you might find on a board or poster in an independent surf shop. The colors in the game really pop. It’s all incredibly mellow, as though you’re hanging with a group of chill surfers rather than desperate survivors. Chill surfers facing their inevitable doom, naturally. I will say the game portrays a remarkable sense of calm for your dire situation from the gentle tones to the music to the odd characters you’ll meet. It generates a moodiness in the title, a sense of irony in regards to the situation. You might die. But at least you’ll die on a lovely beach.
Dead in Bermuda racks up its points in both style and substance. I haven’t really played anything like it, and it feels more like a season of episodic television than it does your average survival game. It’s thoughtful in a way that a lot of survival games aren’t with its story, mood and gameplay balance. It has its faults, ‘drag and drop’ a survivor isn’t the most exciting gameplay, and while I appreciate the devs took a risk with the mellow tones of the music and art style I do feel it ultimately robbed the title of a sense of urgency. Bare in mind you have to be the type that gets a kick out of micro-managment, though it isn’t as overwhelming as it typically is in ‘spreadsheet’ titles. This game is a huge breath of fresh air in a genre that’s been run through the ground by folks who easily confuse ‘originality’ with ‘same exact gameplay in a different geographical setting.’ CCCP took risks, took a unique approach, and offered up a crisp experience to the indie scene that should be appreciated.
