Behind Closed Doors: A Developer’s Tale [Xbox]
Developed by Polygonal Wolf Games, Behind Closed Doors: A Developer’s Tale is a semi-simulation/platforming game, that combines ‘real world’ and ‘game world’ elements. You play as Ethan, a game developer who is awaiting the birth of his baby, Emily. But before he can take any time off work to prepare with his heavily pregnant wife, he must finish the game he is developing, which you’ll get to play parts of as he ‘tests’ it.
In the ‘real world’ segments, whether you are at home chatting to your wife, or at work responding to angry complaint emails and coding your game, it consists solely of tapping away, making it a rather boring, monotonous ritual. Wake up at 8am, go downstairs for breakfast, chat to your wife, brush your teeth and then head to work to work on “Dungeon Crush”, before heading back home for dinner and bed. Rinse and repeat three more times, and you’ll feel as cranky as Ethan when he’s typing away his apathetic email responses. Once you get into your game, as well as the later game-like sections, it takes on more of a platforming vibe, with a short shooter area.
There are a few different game styles within the game, with the ‘real world’, the game you’re developing (Dungeon Crush), and a strange alternate dimension you find yourself in, all having distinctly different art styles as well as play styles - which leaves it feeling very disconnected. My sweaty little goblin palms were in full force, with many of the segments feeling pretty janky, with slippery surfaces that often felt quite unfair - but in such a way that I simply couldn’t tell if it was purposeful jank or not. The soundtrack is quite varied, with music accompanying some sections - such as a relaxing tune whilst at home, and a slightly funkier beat at work, and catchy tracks as you move through each of the trials.
The Slime Gardens, the first of the alternate-dimension-trials you come across, consist of survival sections where you must stay alive whilst facing off against hordes of blue slimes for 1 minute 40 seconds in each round, with a different weapon to help you each time. These sections get progressively harder, but aren’t overly difficult - though strangely the boss at the end of this section is actually easier to deal with than the slimes. The next section, the Caves, quickly became infuriating to journey through due to excessive waiting around for the moving platforms and frequently slipping off of them to my death.
At around 1.5-2hrs in total (including a reload of the final chapter to get the alternate ending achievement), it’s a pretty short title, which sadly we were quite glad of. The ‘complaint emails’ ended up feeling somewhat relevant to the game itself, what with ‘customers’ complaining of the use of free assets (not always a bad thing), their game feeling like “a chore”, and them being happy that the game was over - a sentiment that unfortunately echoed our thoughts. It makes you start to think about the developers opinion of the potential reviewers coming in to review this title - is this some kind of meta joke to riff on the opinions of the game we’re actually playing? It’s a funny thought in passing, but it doesn’t make the game any better, for it.
Priced at £4.19 on the Xbox Store, Behind Closed Doors is a bit of a tedious journey. The segments don’t feel very well connected, with some interesting ideas but all just kind of thrown together, with a real lack of polish. Had the story been fleshed out better, with more segments that offer up a bit more challenge, this would have made it far more interesting - but as it stands, it felt more like a game I just had to get through so that it was done - though it is a fairly straightforward title to nab 1000 gamerscore.
In the end, we decided to give Behind Closed Doors: A Developer’s Tale the Collecting Asylum rating of 5/10.
Are you interested in Behind Closed Doors? What do you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!
- V x
Thank you to Sometimes You for the Behind Closed Doors: A Developer’s Tale Xbox review code!
