Silt is an Interesting Experience

If you’ve played Limbo, you might already have an idea of what to expect when you load up Silt for the first time. It has a similarly eerie feel, beautiful black and white graphics, and a multitude of puzzles that need to be solved. But can Silt recreate the amazing feel you got when playing Limbo? Let’s take a look!

In Silt, you will control a diver who actually has pretty limited abilities. He can swim and use his power to take control of life around him. Each creature that you posses will provide specific benefits that you’ll need to complete a puzzle. Small fish will school together and can distract monsters and flesh eating plants, hammerhead sharks can bash through walls, and barracuda can swim quickly and avoid getting nipped. There are a host of other creatures as well, and all are beneficial in some way when it comes to completing puzzles.

And that’s what Silt is – one game full of dozens of tiny little puzzles. No puzzle ever overstays it’s welcome, and rather than spending 30 minutes trying to get from A to B, each screen is it’s own puzzle and takes a relativley short amount of time, depending on your ability to understand what to do. While some are harder than others, the “aha!” moment when completing a puzzle is outstanding, and never got old.

As you trek through the games 4 areas collecting the statues eyes – figure that out for yourself – you will begin to encounter just a bit of repetition in puzzle design. Thankfully, though, I found that more to be the case as I played more and more of the game, but yet still nothing overstayed its welcome and each puzzle had a slight iteration that made it just a bit different.

What will grab you, however, is the games look and sound. The black and white graphics are gorgeous to look at, and the underwater ambiance is chilling, rather than calming. The artistic design does make the game harder, however, as where you need to go, what walls you can destroy, and so on is not always apparent and there will be some trial and error. Adding any kind of colour or direction, however, would probably have ruined the games overall feel, so I understand the direction taken by the development team.

It won’t take you long to beat Silt – about 5 or 6 hours – but it is definitely a worthwhile experience. If you are looking for that next game to tide you over until the next big AAA release, this is probably it!