Dead as Disco is done.
Once, they were an eclectic and wildly creative band fronted by big-hearted drummer Charlie Disco. Now Charlie is long dead, and his bandmates have all found themselves working for the omnipresent Harmony Corporation. They’re still making music, but not together, and not for themselves. Everything they do, every song they sing, every fan they win, is for Harmony’s sake. Charlie would have hated that, but there’s nothing he can do. He’s dead, after all.
Or he was dead, at any rate. Thanks to a deal with the devil, Charlie has risen from his grave, accompanied and/or monitored by a chatty skull named Vice. He’s only back for one night, and in that time, he’s got to save his bandmates from themselves, break the beat Harmony’s had everyone marching to, and solve his murder. Fortunately, Charlie is a master of the music-based martial art Beat Kune Do. He’s got the skill and style to take on his bandmates, their enthralled fans, and Harmony’s legions of paramilitary goons.
Dead as Disco, out now in early access, is a combination of rhythm game and brawler that puts the player in Charlie’s jacket for a series of levels built around elaborate boss battles with his former bandmates. On a macro level, Dead as Disco’s stages are structurally quite similar: Charlie will open each of them battling the boss’ underlings of choice, often with some manner of complication. Once the goons are out of the picture, Charlie will face one of his bandmates in combat, fighting them through phases that will see their fighting style grow increasingly aggressive and complex.
On a micro level, this structure affords Dead as Disco significant flexibility. None of the four main bosses currently available to challenge feels like another. Rapper and producer Prophet fights deliberately, keeping his guard raised. He will respond to Charlie attempting to pummel him into submission with a walloping counter. Cyborg emo/Nu-metal guitarist Dex compensates for his comparatively low health pool with highly mobile attacks that keep him out of Charlie’s reach. Digital K-pop singer Arora and mutant punker Hemlock, returning from Dead as Disco’s preview build, emphasize projectiles and heavy armor, respectively.
Even the pre-boss brawls offer a welcome amount of variety; Arora, for example, will pit Charlie against a foggy netherrealm full of eerie, faceless mannequins. Some are strictly decorative, some will spring to life and try to match Charlie in fisticuffs, and the worst will teleport away as Charlie approaches and attempt to snipe him while he engages the close-range fighters. Chasing Prophet through his club/office/arena, meanwhile, will see Charlie face off with a durable miniboss in the form of a bouncer and then dodge cars from Prophet’s extensive garage.
In its preview build, Dead as Disco boasted a strong combat system, a neat world, and a darn good soundtrack, but struggled with the tuning of its difficulty and a mismatch between the amount of damage that Charlie could deal and the bosses’ ability to take that damage. The demo versions of Hemlock and Arora’s fights had thrilling moments and cool setpieces, but far too often felt like grinding slogs, especially when it came to wearing down their shields before being able to deal genuine damage to them.
As of early access, Dead as Disco’s combat balance is significantly improved. Some of this is down to Charlie now having access to upgrades that give him a wider variety of combat tools, ranging from expanded health to a handy cross-screen dash.
Mostly though, the team at Brain Jar have worked to tune the game’s combat so that the boss battles are long because the player has to match a challenging boss blow for blow and adjust to a fight’s changing circumstances on the fly, rather than because the bosses have massive shield and health pools and the player has to bring them down with a thousand cuts. Triumphing over one of Charlie’s bandmates consistently feels well-won and satisfying.
Dead as Disco’s combat balance carries over to its challenges, which range from surviving wave after wave of foes until the song is done to using specific techniques to re-engage the bosses with new set-ups and conditions. This is a game built on rhythm and repetition, on pushing the player to hone their skills and burn the soundtrack into their mind. That the soundtrack boasts variety and consistency, original tunes and covers, is welcome (my personal favorite tune so far is Dex’s furious, self-deprecating “Echolokators).
As Dead as Disco currently stands in early access, rewards beyond a high score and personal satisfaction are character and world-based. Clearing a stage and bringing a bandmate back to the bar gives Charlie a chance to mend fences, or at the very least help his band come back to themselves. That can mean going into a stage and hunting down an item significant to them or searching the bar that was their once-and-now-again hang.
Dead as Disco the band are a likable crew with solid chemistry, and their shared story, especially the mysteries of how Charlie died and the inconsistencies in his memories, are intriguing. I’m excited to see where he and his band’s tale will go as the game continues development. Dead as Disco’s preview build was promising. Its early access build, as it currently stands, fulfills that promise. This is a worthy game, worthy of playing now and of following as the team at Brain Jar continues to build and refine it.
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