Review: Data Loss (2020)

Original post: https://misthold.dreamwidth.org/6243.html

Data Loss (2020) is a puzzle game where you play a hacker trying to infect an evil corporation's computers to steal their money. It's fast-paced and fun, with an old-school design like a 1990s computer.

To find the computers to infect you need to switch between two modes: Search and Infect. Search will briefly pop up nodes; Infect will then let you click on the nodes to, well, infect them. However, once you switch from Search to Infect, the nodes turn invisible, so you'll need to remember where they were in order to click on them.

Complicating the game play is: a timer, limited moves, and a scanner which will suck away your time if it intersects with either your Search or your Infect actions. Because nodes are connected, sometimes you hit a node that goes further than you expected, and the scanner finds you when you meant to dodge instead.

Running out of either time or moves without completely infecting every node will take away money from your bank. Go into a negative balance and you're out of the game and have to start all over.

Also, the further along you get into the corporation, the more penalties pile up. You might lose some moves, or un-infected node prices rise higher.

Things that will help you win: finding a special green node adds 15 seconds to your timer and slows down the scanner, leftover time/moves gives you bonus money, and you can buy upgrades to either dodge the scanner, infect nodes faster, or get more money at the end of the round.

But! Buy too many upgrades and you'll be more prone to running out of money when you inevitably have un-infected nodes the next round.

So you basically have to have a decent memory for where the individual nodes are, be fast at clicking, and figure out the scanner pattern to dodge it enough to finish the level. It took me about half an hour before I was good enough to make it to level 10 (out of 25), and I think the more I play the better I'll get at it. (Update: I played again after writing this review and got to level 15!) I really liked it, and I could see getting sucked into a couple hours' worth of playing.

Bonus points for customizable colors so red/green colorblind players can adjust to something easier to see.

Price: $3.00 CAD

This game is still in development.

Available for Windows, Mac and Linux. I played the Mac OS version.