Sludge Life

Sludge Life is a first-person adventure game made by Terri Vellmann and doseone where your primary objective is to tag as much graffiti as possible (for the beginning at least). Really, this is a setup for exploring a factory/town/grimy sludge island teetering on the brink of collapse, and this is a pretty cool setup. With a title screen modeled after old computer desktop backgrounds and a player character named GHOST, Sludge Life is going for a very specific Grunge Aesthetic™.

Sludge Life offers a very solid first-person platforming experience wrapped in a quirky, unique aesthetic. Its lack of challenge and brevity may put some off, but it's a wild and wonderful trip that deserves to be experienced.

Brief and more of an experience than anything else, Sludge Life is a chill way to spend a couple of hours.

Sludge Life feels like the video game version of being under the influence, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. While it feels like it might be a little too wrapped up in its own aesthetics at times, it still remembers that it’s a game first and not a video from the weird part of YouTube. Having it available for free for the moment means that there’s little excuse for you to not at least wade in the smoggy muck for a spell.

As you explore the world you’ll find countless goofs to uncover from a giant sleeping baby to a drunk who’s getting trashed in the gym shower cause they shut the pool down. It’s all humorous enough and adds to the world, but nothing is exactly “laugh at loud” funny. When I played the game at PAX earlier this year I was expecting a fully interactable world to play in, and while you can do some things like play basketball or hallucinate on shrooms, there just isn’t that much else to really do besides walking around finding spots to tag or take pictures. All in all, it took me a little less than ...

I’ve said it time and time again that Devolver Digital has managed to earn my attention whenever they announce a brand new game. For the most part, they have almost always managed to deliver. Their latest release, Sludge Life, was one of their most impressive stunts in recent times. As of the writing of this review, the game will be available for free for an entire year on the Epic Games Store. The question is, even though this won’t be a title you’ll need to spend money on, is it worth...

A mediocre exploration game offset by a solid soundtrack and memorable visual style