Degrees of Separation is an excellent play on words, but there’s certainly more to the new co-op puzzle platformer from developers Moondrop than that.
The game starts off with you swapping between two characters in seemingly different worlds. The winter prince travels from right to left, within his castle to the bridge in front, and the summer girl travels from left to right, from the forest. When they meet, so do their two worlds, but a small barrier stays between the two so they can never touch.
This brings in the main concept and gameplay of the game. Two characters, one whose side of the screen freezes everything, and the other whose side of the screen warms everything up.
Positioning the characters is key – where they are relative to each other dictates which areas of the screen will feel which climate. Move a log in summer and it’ll just move, move it in winter and it’ll roll into a snow ball that can be used as a platform. Going back and forth between the two seasons leads to some clever puzzles for a concept that seems so simple. Jump, climb and push things. Those are pretty much all the mechanics of the game. It’s purely about being in the right place with the right character. In multiplayer, you each control one of the characters and must work together. Single player is an option too, where you can switch characters, call them to follow you, tell them to stay, or simply just push them. It doesn’t work quite as well, but it’s still very playable.
The game itself looks stunning throughout in both docked and handheld mode. The colours really pop and the contrasting effects and backgrounds look amazing. The soundtrack is wonderful too.
It’s a game with few flaws, but one glaring omission seems to be the ability to play online. Local Play, the only play option, suggests that online was planned and maybe could be patched in at some point. This might not be too bad, but single player, although it works fine for the most part, can be quite frustrating when the AI doesn’t play ball and you’re in a situation where switching characters isn’t really an option.
As far as co-op puzzle platformers go, this is arguably the best one that’s ever been made. Single player is still good, but if you’re looking for a two-player game to sink some time into, this is an essential purchase.
DEGREES OF SEPARATION / DEVELOPER: MOONDROP / PUBLISHER: MODUS GAMES / PLATFORM: PC, PS4, SWITCH, XBOX ONE / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
