Dex is an indie video game developed and published by Dreadlocks Ltd [1]. It is a side-scrolling action role-playing game set in a cyberpunk world. The game was released in 2015 and was funded on Kickstarter.
Plot
The story follows Dex, a young woman living in Harbor Prime, a city controlled by corporations.
Dex is awoken one night by a hacker named Raycast, who warns her about a squad of assassins about to enter her apartment. They have been sent by The Complex - a secretive society operating above the corporations and manipulating the Harbor Prime to their own sinister ends.
Raycast guides Dex to relative safety, into a bar known as Fixer's Den, where Dex is helped by Decker, a former hacker, and Tony. Raycast reveals that Dex is the "Avatar of Kether" - Kether being an Artificial Intelligence created by the Complex, capable of overseeing the entire net. The Complex wanted to use Kether to control the entire net, but during the final stages of testing, Kether unexpectedly gained self-awareness and broke free of its restraint. The Complex deployed a counter-program, GSV, that locked Kether in a stalemate with neither able to destroy the other. However, Kether has just enough time to create a backup-copy of itself in a biological network - a human brain. Dex.
Development and release
The game was announced on Game Developers Session 2012 and originally scheduled to be released in 2013. In late 2012, developers started a Kickstarter campaign, which started on November 12 when the studio asked for £14,000. The amount was reached a week later and in the end the game was pledged £30,647. On November 4, 2012 Dex was greenlit for Steam.
The first build of Alpha version was released an Early Access on 14 August 2014. It featured a limited amount of quests and locations. The second build was released three months later, featuring more quests, locations and characters. The Beta was released on 1 April 2015, adding almost all features intended for the final release, including the story, and was published only in Steam Beta Build. The final version was released on 7 May 2015.
Reception
Dex received mixed reviews from critics. Arcade Sushi praised the gameplay system which "combines expressive 2D sprites and nostalgic platforming with some grade-A, modern action-RPG." It also praised the story and its familiarity to Deus Ex and Shadowrun. On the other hand, the save system was criticised as was the journal system. The review also mentioned some minor bugs, but was overall positive and called Dex a "solid game worth investment." Czech server Zing praised the atmosphere of the game world and the story along with the soundtrack. Side-quests that include possibility to make a decision also gained praise. However, it criticised the amount of bugs and noted that Dex should have stayed in Early Access for a bit longer. Dex won the Czech Video Game of the Year Award for artistic contribution to Czech video game output in 2014.