Deadbolt is one of my favorite indie games from the past decade. If it's not in my top ten, it's in my top twenty, easily. More a stealth game with experimental gimmicks that bring its gunplay to life in a way that's seldom been seen since the sixth console generation than a Hot-like (my affectionate term for any game appropriating aspects from the seminal Hotline Miami and its influences), I'm saddened to say that it's flown under a lot of radars. Unless you're talking in a circle that plays a lot of niche indie games, you probably won't ever hear it come up.

And its Nintendo Switch port is probably part of that.

Let me be clear: this is a PC-ass PC game. It's not overly complex and doesn't do the MMO thing of turning your entire screen into an incomprehensible clusterfuck of numbers and menus, nor is it that graphically demanding. It requires a level of precision that's just... not there on a controller. The gimmick I spoke of is something that only works on a mouse. Like in most shooters, the further your target is from your gun, the more likely it is that your bullets will miss them. Due to Deadbolt being a 2D sidescroller, there's more to it. The closer your crosshair is to your character, the more accurate they are. There's a strong and satisfying focus on headshots, and a big part of the game is trying to figure out how to align your crosshair from distances to achieve them. Translating this to a controller, you only really have two options: you try to do what Intravenous did, and have the crosshair feel awkwardly independent of the character. Or, you can just implement a clunky lock-on system that makes the precision required either less satisfying or too frustrating. Guess which option they stuck with. Here's a hint: this game only ends up using one analog stick.

It's a shame because most of what I love about this game is still there. There's still this feeling of each level being a contained, small-scale sandbox to keep revisiting. It's still satisfying to find ways to finish levels with only a gun, or a hammer, or headshots. The hidden delight of Deadbolt is this feeling I get every time I play it, where I want to go out of my way to choreograph each attack and move in an almost balletic fashion. It's too stiff to be near even the worst of Platinum Games' repertoire, and you will catch me in a ditch before I start calling every game ever made Dark Souls because they aren't mindless corridor shooters where brute force is the only option. But once you get to the point where you can clear initially tough stages in under a minute, none of that matters, and, lock-on or not, that's something that carries over.

Am I saying you shouldn't play the Switch version? I mean, if you have to, or you want a copy of this on the go. Otherwise, the PC version will do you just fine.

This game is like Undertale 2

Deadbolt is a game where you play as the reaper on a quest to kill evil drug dealers in the realm of the dead. This game parodies cops who raid Druglord but gives this lighthearted tone with unique devilish creatures like zombies, vampires, skeletons, and demons to avoid being too realistic and controversial.
The goal is pretty simple, the goal is usually to just kill all undead in the building you are raiding, it can go from being pretty easy to be a challenging puzzle that will use every neuron in your brain to do everything right under the right timing, it's in the same veins as a game like Super Meat Boy where you just die and retry till you can get it right.

The game is pretty short and you can easily do it in under 5 hours which is a perfect length for this kind of game. This game always has been a personal favorite of mine ever since it was released, and also one of the oldest games I've played but never fully beaten and it was finally time to get this out of my backlog, after 7 years...

The fun of Deadbolt comes from formulating a plan & seeing just how well you can stick to it. Deciding what enemies to take out first, what items to grab, figuring out what areas you can use to your advantage & when to reveal yourself to enemies

And what makes this game a true triumph in the stealth game genre is its best levels are the boss fights, because Deadbolt understands that stealth bosses are at their best when they're a well guarded target the player needs to figure out how to take out. All and all, Deadbolt is fantastic

He ran his fingers across the hard, dried oak. Cracks could be seen on its dark, dehydrated surface. It never rained here -- just an endless, cloudless, black night. A streetlamp hummed somberly, illuminating a metallic deadbolt with faint white light. Underneath, a brass handle. Slowly, he twisted it.

It's cold.

He pushed gently. Nothing moved. He tried again, harder this time. His other hand impatiently fidgeted an antique metal lighter in his trench pocket. Peering through dark gap in-between the frames, he saw the lock jam the large chunk of wood in place.

Stepping back for a brief moment, he analyzed the estate.

It was a multi-story penthouse. Geometric and unsightly. Walls were crassly painted with bone-white, revealing underneath red-brown brick and dull cement. Though florescent lights were visible from the outside, it was dead quiet.

In the distance, squares and rectangles split the sky like unadorned monoliths.

He was looking for a vampire -- Sir Stela from the family of the same name, who led co-led the 1000 Year Royals along with Madame Stela. Supposedly, the Candles believed him to have information regarding the production of Ash, an unknown new drug abused by the Undead. Yet, through his own investigation, he believed that there was more to it than merely a high.

The silent night was shredded by a loud crack from the upper floor of the penthouse.

He let go of the lighter, and drew a Smith & Wesson Model 30 from his inner left pocket. It chambered only six .32 caliber rounds, but it would have to do for now. He banged on the door with a curled fist, splintering pieces off the frame, further disturbing the dead night. A grunt, then footsteps could be heard approaching the door. The sounds were hollow. Heavy. Rattling. And then -- a click.

As the door pried open, he pulled the trigger lightly, cocking the hammer.

As the wood groaned against its hinges, a gaunt, skeletal figure was swiftly met with smooth iron in his jaw.

And as the light poured out from within, so did shards of bone and lead, splaying across the doorstep and hallway with withered, black blood painting the dried wooden frame.

Cold air flooded the penthouse -- and the deadbolt's steel body continued to shine in the lifeless luminescence.

Certainly serviceable as a puzzle game with twitch challenges thrown in to keep the seat from getting to inlaid underneath you, it fails in its repetition in ways that the obvious influences didn't (Hotline Miami, Gunpoint) and in ways that were not issues in the dev's other works. I'm glad that the studio was able to take a break away from Risk of Rain in between the first and second instalment in that series, so the itches in the software feel more like picking a real stalactite of a scab off than a mosquito bite, but they returned to what they knew with such aplomb that makes it feel as though the deviation was really a dead end for their appetites.

in all honesty this game isnt really anything special but i think the story is pretty good and the gameplay is overall satisfying, so its ok. the inconsistent enemy ais are a bit annoying however. my favorite part of the game is the terrible architecture; on the second (iirc) level, the very first room you enter is a bathroom. imagine having a house, your guests come in and the first thing they see is you taking a shit! thats fucked. seriously though, i just find this funny. music is fantastic too

I really want to like this game. Made by such a small team it does very well. Art, music, and atmosphere are all there. My main problem is its gameplay. With its 1 hp mechanic it becomes extremely tedious and repetitive. I do like games with this same mechanic but I feel as though Deadbolt does it with more tedium as it’s slower than similar games Hotline Miami, Celeste, Ghostrunner etc. These deaths have more ‘weight’ than in those games. Deadbolt is just a slower paced game and it suffers for it.

Certain levels have unclear objectives and major difficulty spikes (Lux in tenebris 2-3) when the objective changes to ‘kill all undead’ whilst there are no undead in the level I had no idea that meant dancing vampires because how could I?