About Weak Piece:
The game looks impressive and feels original from the start. Hand drawn graphics play a significant part in telling the story and there is an unusual soundtrack playing throughout which gives the game an earthy and natural feel. Instruments such as the marimba, rav drums and udu are used to create the weird but spiritual acoustics. The trouble with story telling through the medium of pictures is that the meaning can often get lost or interpreted in different ways. To be honest I wasn’t sure what the story was until I read the synopsis on the store page afterwards. It lacked cohesion due to there being no narrative or voice acting. Weakless is a single player co-op adventure where you take control of either a deaf or blind woodland creature called a Weavling. The whole deaf and blind angle didn’t work for me. Deaf has no disability in the game at all. You would not know he was deaf unless you were told. His deafness does not affect gameplay in any way. Even the music and special effects can be heard when you are under his control. The blind person has more of an obvious disadvantage and controlling him is difficult because your view is affected. He is not completely blind however and can see small distances ahead, which can be enlarged by banging his staff. A kind of sonar arrangement, I guess. Whilst solving these puzzles using the blind man I just kept thinking to myself why make a puzzle game character blind? It just became annoying rather than challenging. The camera view was terrible creating even more visibility issues and the “sonar” ability did not always work. The camera angle is almost as bad for the deaf person and often Blind obscures your view as he tags along behind you. Blind will always try and meet up with you when not being controlled which often involves him getting stuck or walking into deadly goo.
