For an in-depth review, tune into the video below:
https://youtu.be/Zho4nNUOix0
Otherwise, here’s a summarized write up.

Story
Inspired by the Romanian’s Communist regime that ended in 1989, Black the Fall focuses solely on the tale of an unnamed machinist trying to escape the facility. The story is likely only going to appeal to a specific set of people. Whilst playing, we witness many scenes that play out as a form of symbolism to the real-life conditions during Romania’s Communist regime (eg. Poor working conditions and abusive authority) but that’s really the extent of the narrative.

There are no memorable characters, no spoken dialogue and no distinct personalities. Essentially if you aren’t interested in how this parallels to Romania’s past, then you’ll likely find no compelling factor in the story.

Gameplay
BTF is a slide scrolling puzzler where the objective of each puzzle is to get from the left to the right side of the screen. It’s easier to understand the puzzles if you separate between the ones inside the facility (section 1) to those outside of it (section 2).

Both sections include simple platforming, avoiding getting seen by enemies and interacting with brightly lit switches that do things like opening doors. At times, you’ll platform your way to the objective but very early in the game puzzles start to focus on a laser pointer you come across that allows you to control nearby workers to activate switches you can’t reach. You can also manually control the pointer to point toward light-sensitive panels to activate things in the environment.

Section 1 puzzles for the most part are pretty simple, since most of them take place in a small area with very few items to interact with and therefore very little experimentation. There are some puzzles in section 1 that are bigger in scale but these are few and far between. Besides the simple straightforward puzzles using the laser pointer, you also have a few interesting ones that surprise you now and again with how ‘neat’ they are. I say that because you’re not going to think it was anything more than mildly clever in terms of its difficulty.

Even the interesting puzzles in section 1 can still be seen as rather simple. An example is a puzzle that requires you to listen for nearby environmental hazards and move forward in the dark using you sense of hearing. Not particularly difficult but a ‘neat’ addition nonetheless.
In section 2, puzzles change because you also get a new robot companion. This time, you can use your laser pointer to direct him to specific areas, effectively giving you 2 players to control. Puzzles here are more complex by comparison because of the increased scale allowing for more interactable items per puzzle and, with it, more experimentation.

Also, this is where the game introduces puzzles that require the robot’s help and since the robot’s moveset is more diverse than just moving left and right (it can swim while you cannot), it makes for more creative puzzle design. It’s clear that section 2 has the more challenging puzzles but even then, they were never difficult enough for me to feel stumped or to force me to pause for minutes on end.

Ultimately when looking at all the puzzles as a whole I would say most of them are simple to decent in difficulty. From that category, only about 25 percent of them are ‘neat’ or an interesting twist to make you go ‘huh, never thought of that’. The rest are either just really easy which is a problem in terms of value since the game already doesn’t have a lot of puzzles to begin with.

Pros
1) decent presentation – nice minimalistic visuals for character designs and nice sound effects. BGM takes a more ambient role.
2) some puzzles are genuinely an interesting execution of mechanics

Cons
1) most puzzles are simple – gets better in section 2 but they still don’t pose a significant enough challenge
2) the story is likely only to be appreciated by a small set of people – no conventional narrative to enjoy.

Conclusion
Black the fall is a short game, but above all else, it is a puzzler that doesn’t sport a lot of difficult challenges. Most are simple to decent at best with about a quarter of that portion being interesting in a unexpected manner. Taking that into consideration with the fact that most people aren’t going to be invested in the Communist setting, it’s difficult to justify the value proposition. As such, I’m going to recommend that you wait for a sale on this one, probably till it’s about 10 dollars. And that’s pretty much it for the review.

For an in-depth review, tune into the video below: https://youtu.be/Zho4nNUOix0 Otherwise, here’s a summarized write up. [b]Story[/b] Inspired by the Romanian’s Communist regime that ended in 1989, Black the Fall focuses solely on the tale of an unnamed machinist trying to escape the facility. The story is likely only going to appeal to a specific set of people. Whilst playing, we witness many scenes that play out as a form of symbolism to the real-life conditions during Romania’s Communist regime (eg. Poor working conditions and abusive authority) but that’s really the extent of the narrative. There are no memorable characters, no spoken dialogue and no distinct personalities. Essentially if you aren’t interested in how this parallels to Romania’s past, then you’ll likely find no compelling factor in the story. [b] Gameplay [/b] BTF is a slide scrolling puzzler where the objective of each puzzle is to get from the left to the right side of the screen. It’s easier to understand the puzzles if you separate between the ones inside the facility (section 1) to those outside of it (section 2). Both sections include simple platforming, avoiding getting seen by enemies and interacting with brightly lit switches that do things like opening doors. At times, you’ll platform your way to the objective but very early in the game puzzles start to focus on a laser pointer you come across that allows you to control nearby workers to activate switches you can’t reach. You can also manually control the pointer to point toward light-sensitive panels to activate things in the environment. Section 1 puzzles for the most part are pretty simple, since most of them take place in a small area with very few items to interact with and therefore very little experimentation. There are some puzzles in section 1 that are bigger in scale but these are few and far between. Besides the simple straightforward puzzles using the laser pointer, you also have a few interesting ones that surprise you now and again with how ‘neat’ they are. I say that because you’re not going to think it was anything more than mildly clever in terms of its difficulty. Even the interesting puzzles in section 1 can still be seen as rather simple. An example is a puzzle that requires you to listen for nearby environmental hazards and move forward in the dark using you sense of hearing. Not particularly difficult but a ‘neat’ addition nonetheless. In section 2, puzzles change because you also get a new robot companion. This time, you can use your laser pointer to direct him to specific areas, effectively giving you 2 players to control. Puzzles here are more complex by comparison because of the increased scale allowing for more interactable items per puzzle and, with it, more experimentation. Also, this is where the game introduces puzzles that require the robot’s help and since the robot’s moveset is more diverse than just moving left and right (it can swim while you cannot), it makes for more creative puzzle design. It’s clear that section 2 has the more challenging puzzles but even then, they were never difficult enough for me to feel stumped or to force me to pause for minutes on end. Ultimately when looking at all the puzzles as a whole I would say most of them are simple to decent in difficulty. From that category, only about 25 percent of them are ‘neat’ or an interesting twist to make you go ‘huh, never thought of that’. The rest are either just really easy which is a problem in terms of value since the game already doesn’t have a lot of puzzles to begin with. [b]Pros[/b] 1) decent presentation – nice minimalistic visuals for character designs and nice sound effects. BGM takes a more ambient role. 2) some puzzles are genuinely an interesting execution of mechanics [b] Cons [/b] 1) most puzzles are simple – gets better in section 2 but they still don’t pose a significant enough challenge 2) the story is likely only to be appreciated by a small set of people – no conventional narrative to enjoy. [b] Conclusion [/b] Black the fall is a short game, but above all else, it is a puzzler that doesn’t sport a lot of difficult challenges. Most are simple to decent at best with about a quarter of that portion being interesting in a unexpected manner. Taking that into consideration with the fact that most people aren’t going to be invested in the Communist setting, it’s difficult to justify the value proposition. As such, I’m going to recommend that you wait for a sale on this one, probably till it’s about 10 dollars. And that’s pretty much it for the review.