The Deer God

The Deer God is a tough sell, its visuals and music can’t help make this game any less frustrating. If you have a lot of time and more importantly a lot of patience maybe this game is good for you, but as it stands, I would stay clear.

The Deer God starts off on an interesting note and features a visual style that catches the players' eyes but unfortunately, it does not capitalize on its assets and quickly becomes an uninteresting, unappealing and repetitive game that could have been much more compelling, had its best elements been fully explored.

The Deer God may be a great visual experience to unwind with, and it has a spiritual message to match. But when it comes down to the actual gameplay, the game just feels too stiff and uninteresting. Despite an almost enchanting presence, the actual mechanics of The Deer God will do as much as possible to push you away.

With all the indies in the Switch eShop, The Deer God is one that fails to impress on the level as others. As great as the premise is, the gameplay is repetitive and boring, with really no incentive to play for more than a few minutes. The art style is as tired as the random encounter or escort mission, and the game just fails to come together in any meaningful way. Other indies far outshine this one, and your money is probably best spent elsewhere.

Set in pretty landscapes with a storyline full of theoretical potential, The Deer God had us highly intrigued during the first few moments of the game. Unfortunately, though, this instantly faded away and never returned; the repetitive nature of the core gameplay, which mostly consists of just running to the right over the same platforms, meant that we lost all interest in discovering the answers to its philosophical questions.

I stared deep into the eyes of the deer, waiting for it to speak. There was no grass, no trees; just a white void surrounding me and her heavenly grace as she judged me and my actions. But she did not speak. She did not even blink. As the silence dragged on, I grew more desperate, bargaining with her to just make sense of this, please! What should I be feeling? What should I be believing!? Deer God, what lesson do I need to learn? She screamed, for she did not know. I screamed, for I did not know. Perhaps that was the lesson to learn, that there is nothing to know. Don’t buy this game.

The blurb for The Deer God promises to Challenge your religion and your platforming skills, but it does neither. The platforming moments are ridiculously easy, and the combat is easily abused. The worst of the game, though, is the story, which constantly stresses a morality that makes no sense at all, all culminating in an absolutely moronic ending. There are many fantastic indie titles that have made the jump to Nindies. This is not one of them.

There’s far too much wrong here for me to recommend The Deer God. Maybe the devs will continue developing and turn this into an excellent game at some point. The pieces are all there. It just needs more time and effort to unlock its full potential.