The absolute squeal I made when I spawned into the game as a tiny adorable crow has already sold me on the entire theme of this game. Developed by Acid Nerve and published by Devolver Digital, ‘Death’s Door’ is a game about reaping the souls of the world to fuel a dark and mysterious door; a door that reaps even more souls.

A vicious cycle, or so the scary crow says in his warning to us. Becoming mortal as our little bird friend enters the realm to collect assigned souls, our true adventure begins.

The story of this game is certainly unique to the average platformer. Its story focuses on reaping souls and entering the many different realms, becoming mortal upon entering any dimension other than your main area of business.

You continue through the map until you fight the big boss of the particular soul you need to reap, however, after defeating them, the soul is taken and you have to chase after it to another realm and fight to save the soul again. The story is very attentive and appealing to the player and requires you to pay attention at every turn.

After wandering for a while in the main office, I discovered you can collect different weapons. The attack options are limited but are simple and progressive throughout the story, especially after collecting new weapon types.

After learning two different types of attack; your standard sword swing and shooting a bow, which recovers ammo by hitting the enemy characters, you will be on your way. To use either ability is a left and right click and aiming with your mouse. The boss fights are well developed and have multiple stages to complete, but are easy enough with the simple mechanics of each stage.

The design of this game is very appealing to me. I love the different crows in the main home building and how crows were a suitable choice, given they are normally associated with death, and I adore the idea of wandering around as a tiny crow fighting multiple enemies for the soul’s return.

The combat system fits into the design of the characters, along with the combat music which fastens in pace and had me panicking the first time I faced a big screen with DEATH scrawled across it after my first death.

Death’s Door is an adorable combat-orientated fantasy platformer. I enjoyed exploring all of the areas I could with the amazing attention to detail in all map designs and the creation of all the characters. I would highly recommend Death’s Door to all those who are interested in platformers. Its story is very unique in how it uses the crow concerning death, and it’s very beautiful to watch the story unfold. I look forward to playing more when the game comes out on July 21st, 2021.

Written by: Caitlin