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Released in 2018, Flashing lights is a single developer Steam Early Access game created by Nils Jakrins based in Latvia and published by Excalibur Games. Recently Flashing Lights has received several additions, with the fire update at the end of April and the rescue truck update in May. With the recent updates to the game, we decided to check out the Nils Jarkins game. Find out how it is so far with our Early Access review of Flashing Lights.
Story: No story, but a world to make your own
Players will step into the shoes of a first responder, head out and enforce the law, save lives, or stop fires. In this open world, you’ll have the freedom to choose your role and how you play. Unfortunately, you’re not going to find any story in Flashing Lights. This is an open-world sandbox giving you the tools to create your own story or not if you choose. While there may not be any story, there are quite a few roleplaying servers in multiplayer that will give you a chance to make your own story with your friends.
Gameplay: Choose your approach to various objectives
The gameplay is where the meat and potatoes of this indie title will be found, with three different jobs to choose from police, firefighter, and medic. You’ll select your outfit and vehicle before you begin. Once selected, you spawn into the world and can set out to try and do some good. You’ll start to receive dispatches that will send you off from here.
The player can receive various dispatches for the three jobs, requiring different vehicles and tools. However, dispatchers will only give the player some basic information regarding the situation, including the incident, location, and needed vehicle. On arrival, players must decide how to approach each situation and determine the best outcome. While Flashing Lights offers interesting concepts to allow players the freedom to determine their approach, NPC behaviors at times will hinder decision-making by getting stuck or not moving. Hopefully, these issues will be addressed in a later update of the game as this title is still in development.
An open-world for players to decide how to respond to emergencies
When working, players usually arrive on the scene and choose how they want to approach the situation. They will have many of the tools that each profession posses. For example, a police officer will have usable handcuffs, a taser, and a handgun on their person to use as necessary. This is the same with the other choosable professions. Multiple tools inside your vehicle add another level of choice to your approach. Completing each of these calls will reward you with experience and reputation.
If singleplayer gets a little dull, players can always jump into one of the available multiplayer servers. Servers range from official servers to public player-run servers and private servers, which will all offer a different experience. You can find just some general play where you jump in and take dispatches, but there are several roleplay servers of various levels of seriousness in the community. Unfortunately, the layout of multiplayer lobbies is cumbersome. The multiplayer lobby layout in Flashing Lights has to jump from region to region to find one that has active servers during our review. We found that the east coast region contained the most active service.
Graphics/Audio: A bit buggy, but with room to grow
Flashing Lights utilizes the Unity Engine, offering an expansive world to explore with the various locations where each dispatch occurs. Additionally, players have ample space that facilitates different experiences with each call and allows a lot of room for online players to collaborate and work together.
Unfortunately, during our Flashing Lights review, we did run into various bugs. The most significant issue was distance loading. Even when trying different graphics settings, surrounding objects would still load slowly. Of course, Flashing Lights is still in Early Access, so it’s fair to say that many of these issues will be dealt with in the future as optimization improves.
You’ll find realistic-sounding vehicles, and even voice chat sounds like it’s coming from a radio. There’s lots of detail in the sound between the effects and the city, but when running through the city lights and sirens, you’re probably going to want to turn your sounds down as they are set very loud by default.
Conclusion: A promising multiplayer indie game
While still in development, the Nils Jakrins game Flashing Lights shows promise, offering an open world to play in by yourself or with friends. While it does have its various bugs and issues during play, the game is worth checking out, offering a sense of freedom while being able to step into the shoes of our emergency services.
If you are interested in picking up the Nils Jakrins game Flashing Lights after reading our review, you can find it on the Steam Early Access program for $24.99. Additionally, if you are interested, you can learn more about the developer Nils Jakrins on their development page. You can also learn more about the publisher Excalibur Games and any other titles on their publisher page.