Carefully journey through a ruined city as D.R.I.E.D., a District-Roving Intelligent Engineering Device in search of fuel. Except you need fuel to be able to look for it, using it as you travel.
D.R.I.E.D., from Efiheim, Jack Pressnell, and Jason Davey (of the Steamhounds team), is a FTL-like roguetrip across an abandoned city in search of fuel. The issue is that you need fuel to move, and you’ll also need it to barter for upgrades. Made as part of the Ludum Dare 44 jam, which had the theme of ‘Your Life is currency’, the design choice to have fuel as a bartering tool and a thing you use to explore the world is a smart one and fits the genre perfectly.
You’ll find that there are three other resource types within D.R.I.E.D. as well: Armour, Shielding, and Parts. Each of these count toward certain events you can come across, depending on how the generation has loaded up the world. Even after you’ve got a grip of the map and core events, some of them change up their results anyway, so you can never truly be sure of how things will turn out. Classic fare for a game of this type, but still impressive considering the 48hr deadline.
And that’s the thing about D.R.I.E.D. – its a complete product from end to end, and I felt a little bit sad each time I finished it and the screen didn’t generate a new area. I’d have kept playing the game for a lot longer than the current package contains, and that’s a sign of quality when it comes to smaller projects like this.
I mentioned the developers of the game earlier. Jason Davey, the programmer, is the lead on Steamhounds, another game which masters the balance and feel of short runs — albeit its runs are actually tight 3vs3 tactical battles.
D.R.I.E.D. is playable for free on Itch.io.
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