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Blattdorf
Aug 10, 2012

"This will be the best for both of us, Bradley."
"Meow."
imscared is just really effective at what it does, and without resorting to jumpscares. The review nails it perfectly, so there's not much else I can add to that. Definitely check the game out if you haven't already.

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A. Beaverhausen
Nov 11, 2008

by R. Guyovich
A good scary game without jumpscares is always intriguing. Guess I'll be giving it a shot!

GulagDolls
Jun 4, 2011

i mean...imscared DOES have at least one jumpscare. (I think? have I been using the wrong definition of jumpscares this whole time..I'm actually curious as to how people personally define them) and it scared the bajeezus out of me. but it's accurate to say it doesn't rely on them.

Professor of Cats
Mar 22, 2009

Fhqwhgads posted:

I picked up imscared based on this thread thinking I'd enjoy it. Noped the gently caress out after the game's first scare.

It sounds objectively dumb I know, but computers or electronics in general not behaving the way they're supposed to elicits probably the closest thing to actual terror I've felt. Even if it's only for a second before my brain kicks in and understands what's going on. Like even if my computer bluescreens, there's at least a split second of actual fear. It's hard to describe. I mean jump scares are jump scares. You yell, it gets you, you move on.

I think it has something to do with me growing up with a C64 and the way that 5.25" drive would grind if you entered a wrong command or didn't have a disk inserted.

Remember being a kid and the NES glitches out and hangs on some awful note? Stuff like that and stuff copying that unnerves me to this day.

al-azad
May 28, 2009



GulagDolls posted:

i mean...imscared DOES have at least one jumpscare. (I think? have I been using the wrong definition of jumpscares this whole time..I'm actually curious as to how people personally define them) and it scared the bajeezus out of me. but it's accurate to say it doesn't rely on them.

I'd say any time there's silenced followed by a loud noise. And I mean ear piercingly loud, like it registers in the red if you were measuring it. I haven't played imscared but watching streams there's a moment where you turn around and a dude is behind you but the audio cue indicating it's a scare isn't that loud. Sudden images or whatever isn't enough for a jump scare, what actually makes you jump is our natural instinct to be alerted to loud noises. It's a cheap trick in the same way raising your fist and hitting someone for flinching.

sigher
Apr 22, 2008

My guiding Moonlight...



Morpheus posted:

I like the game overall but seriously the melee is garbage. Like, it's so inconsistent on whether or not the zombie loving dies, otherwise I can be using a really high-level weapon and wailing on the most basic zombie hoping that maybe it'll die before this weapon shatters in my hand despite being brand new. And then sometimes the drat things dies in one hit from a lovely plank of wood. It makes no sense and really makes me not want to play any of it.

Yeah, we got to some part in the game where we were inside and we literally had to get into melee combat to deal with poo poo and get out and we could spend several minutes on one zombie boot stomping the dude in the head and smashing lovely melee weapons on him as well while they all broke and the zombie would just keep getting up. It's so god drat awful.

Is there any console commands to just spawn weapons and ammo because if not, I'm done.

al-azad
May 28, 2009



That's a strange reversal considering Dead Island was all about whacking zombies with Dead Rising esque weaponry.

MrMojok
Jan 28, 2011

I know I'm a few weeks late with this comment, but F.E.A.R. also had my favorite music ever in a video game. Not only this track, all of them, but this one should send shivers down the spine of any F.E.A.R.coholic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1S8OUvhJRo

al-azad
May 28, 2009



I want Soul Reaver to come back so I can get more of... whatever genre of music this is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNWSDvDqm9g

the black husserl
Feb 25, 2005

Fhqwhgads posted:

I picked up imscared based on this thread thinking I'd enjoy it. Noped the gently caress out after the game's first scare.

It sounds objectively dumb I know, but computers or electronics in general not behaving the way they're supposed to elicits probably the closest thing to actual terror I've felt. Even if it's only for a second before my brain kicks in and understands what's going on. Like even if my computer bluescreens, there's at least a split second of actual fear. It's hard to describe. I mean jump scares are jump scares. You yell, it gets you, you move on.

I think it has something to do with me growing up with a C64 and the way that 5.25" drive would grind if you entered a wrong command or didn't have a disk inserted.

I get the same feeling, but for me the trigger is "falling through the level". Actual, legit, nasty-smelling-sweat-dripping fear. If someone was to design a horror game around that sensation, I would be sincerely unable to play it.

Megaman's Jockstrap
Jul 16, 2000

What a horrible thread to have a post.

s.i.r.e. posted:

Yeah, we got to some part in the game where we were inside and we literally had to get into melee combat to deal with poo poo and get out and we could spend several minutes on one zombie boot stomping the dude in the head and smashing lovely melee weapons on him as well while they all broke and the zombie would just keep getting up. It's so god drat awful.

Is there any console commands to just spawn weapons and ammo because if not, I'm done.

I play on PS4, so I can't help, but I played the game on Hard from the get-go and had a hell of a time with the zombies at the beginning - I agree with you that they are VERY tough, maybe too tough - and I don't remember ever HAVING to fight them.

For your current playthrough I would recommend using Firecrackers, which distract the Zeds while you run by.

Later you get so many skills and are so mobile that weapons get somewhat de-emphasized.

A. Beaverhausen
Nov 11, 2008

by R. Guyovich

the black husserl posted:

I get the same feeling, but for me the trigger is "falling through the level". Actual, legit, nasty-smelling-sweat-dripping fear. If someone was to design a horror game around that sensation, I would be sincerely unable to play it.

I always had a fear of older games when you fell through, that one day some assholes would put a giant gently caress off monster in the abyss. I don't know why, it's an existential kind of fear I guess.

Kulkasha
Jan 15, 2010

But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Likchenpa.

al-azad posted:

I'd say any time there's silenced followed by a loud noise. And I mean ear piercingly loud, like it registers in the red if you were measuring it. I haven't played imscared but watching streams there's a moment where you turn around and a dude is behind you but the audio cue indicating it's a scare isn't that loud. Sudden images or whatever isn't enough for a jump scare, what actually makes you jump is our natural instinct to be alerted to loud noises. It's a cheap trick in the same way raising your fist and hitting someone for flinching.

Any sudden scare that makes you feel dumb and embarrassed, like, drat, that made me jump? is a jumpscare/catscare. Any sudden scare that resonates and stays with you is a terror proper.

al-azad
May 28, 2009



Kulkasha posted:

Any sudden scare that makes you feel dumb and embarrassed, like, drat, that made me jump? is a jumpscare/catscare. Any sudden scare that resonates and stays with you is a terror proper.

There's a scene in the new IT I'm a little conflicted on Pennywise grabbing Beverly because it's super loving loud but it's telegraphed well and comes after an intense scene. You even see it coming for a split second and right when your brain registers something's wrong LOUDNOISES. I know the guy editing that was going frame by frame like "250ms is the average human reaction so we put the sound riiiiiight... here."

Crabtree
Oct 17, 2012

ARRRGH! Get that wallet out!
Everybody: Lowtax in a Pickle!
Pickle! Pickle! Pickle! Pickle!

Dinosaur Gum
If anything Legacy of Kain matched its meticulous desire to craft a world by also utilizing the best sounds to materialize it within the players brain, from voices to ambient noises. Where most alternative vampires still try to be glamorous to a degree or utilize some kind of modern setting, LoK never shied away from Kain being a stuck up, power hungry noble, born into expecting the world to wipe his rear end, that was thrust into being some mystical scion of balance that he had absolutely no care to die just so a world could live. Vampires, much like every aspect of the series, mutated. Changed over the course of two console generations to produce something wholly unique unto itself, if not always as a quality product. The music went beyond Gothic overtures or some pithy Gregorian chant that you'd typically get at this time and in this kind of setting, it cultivated some kind of bizarre mixture of horror, electronica and whatever the hell is LoK's personal flavor that may only have been possible from the late 90s to early 2000s. And then final cherry on top was the actors it picked, the pure, refined talent swirling around to hit you with soothing malice of Simon Templeton, the inquisitive snark of Micheal Bell and the booming baritone of Tony Jay.

And its story will never really be complete now after so many have been lost and too much time has passed. Where Silent Hill was some people's horror, Legacy of Kain was mine.

chitoryu12
Apr 24, 2014

al-azad posted:

There's a scene in the new IT I'm a little conflicted on Pennywise grabbing Beverly because it's super loving loud but it's telegraphed well and comes after an intense scene. You even see it coming for a split second and right when your brain registers something's wrong LOUDNOISES. I know the guy editing that was going frame by frame like "250ms is the average human reaction so we put the sound riiiiiight... here."

Even after watching It, a second viewing still gave me chills. The library scene is a brilliant example of horror without jump scares.

Instruction Manuel
May 15, 2007

Yes, it is what it looks like!

A. Beaverhausen posted:

I always had a fear of older games when you fell through, that one day some assholes would put a giant gently caress off monster in the abyss. I don't know why, it's an existential kind of fear I guess.

Have you ever heard of the Action Half Life mapper Hondo? They made a series of maps for Action Half Life but they had secrets that were opened in very peculiar ways. The opus was a map that had a very specific set of tasks that brought you face to face with a world devouring monster called the Hgrethedelon. Here's what happens at the end:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD8hzQVfyBw

A. Beaverhausen
Nov 11, 2008

by R. Guyovich

Wamdoodle posted:

Have you ever heard of the Action Half Life mapper Hondo? They made a series of maps for Action Half Life but they had secrets that were opened in very peculiar ways. The opus was a map that had a very specific set of tasks that brought you face to face with a world devouring monster called the Hgrethedelon. Here's what happens at the end:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD8hzQVfyBw

Welp, that's a fear realised. Not so much a giant eyeball is that terrifying but it's a proof of concept I don't care for :(

Thundercracker
Jun 25, 2004

Proudly serving the Ruinous Powers since as a veteran of the long war.
College Slice
I concur Doki Doki Literature Club is fantastic. It takes about an hour and a half to set up the game though, but after then it's balls out craziness and horror. Don't look up anything about it though. It's really easy to be spoiled.

Too Shy Guy
Jun 14, 2003


I have destroyed more of your kind than I can count.



I hate that I have to post this one so late, because it's probably the best horror title I've played this month.

:ghost: SPOOKY G4MES: The Ghost Dimension :ghost:

1. Stories Untold
2. Rusty Lake Hotel
3. Rusty Lake: Roots
4. Left in the Dark: No One on Board
5. Daily Chthonicle: Editor's Edition
6. Eleusis
7. Dead Effect
8. Dead Effect 2
9. State of Decay
10. Dead End Road
11. Goetia
12. EMPORIUM
13. F.E.A.R.
14. F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin
15. F.E.A.R. 3
16. The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
17. Bloody Streets
18. Layers of Fear
19. Dark Fall 2: Lights Out
20. Painkiller: Black Edition
21. Doorways: The Underworld
22. Doorways: Holy Mountains of Flesh
23. Yomawari: Night Alone
24. IMSCARED

25. Detention



Detention follows a unique arc in horror that not many other titles manage to trace. It starts in a perfectly grounded place, with familiar characters and real-world concerns. From there it spirals off into a fantastic journey of bizarre horrors and vivid, dreamlike imagery. At the tail end of this, it comes right back to a grounded conclusion somehow enhanced by the weirdness endured on the way there. It’s a deeply-affecting game because of this, one that wields its symbolism and purpose with a confident hand.

The game opens in the shoes of Wei, a high school student in 1960s Taiwan. After falling asleep in class he awakens to find himself trapped in the school during a typhoon, his only companion being an upper-classman named Ray. Mysterious events are set in motion that put them in peril, including the road into town washing away and a strange presence stalking the halls. As the story turns darker their relevance to the lives of these two students is laid bare, along with the reason for their isolation and the effect it has on their lives.

There are some VERY heavy overtones here, ones that resonate powerfully in the real world. Citizens of Taiwan in the 1960s lived under martial law, a brutal regime that allowed only limted speech and political ideology. Anyone who resisted was not long for this world, a threat that extended even to students. A cornerstone of Detention’s horror is set in this terrifying reality, where instructors and authorities are constantly watching for dissident thought to excise. Simply reading the wrong book could mean vanishing into the night with a bag over your head, and to me there are few ideas in horror more horrifying than that.

Detention brings this world to the player as a stark reality, where students and teachers alike are fearful and suspicious of each other with threat of death hanging over them all. It takes a terrible toll on them, and the psychological damage is a major focus of this title. It’s expressed through a great deal of striking imagery, much of it steeped in Chinese folklore. You’ll encounter religion in the shrines and talismans set about, mythology in the strange creatures you encounter and how you escape them, and culture in solving puzzles containing unique concepts like spirit money. For those of us unfamiliar with the culture it provides a unique sort of immersion, since we can’t be sure how some of the more esoteric elements fit with reality.

I wish I could explain the story more directly but it would be a crime to spoil any part of it, considering how gripping it is. The tale is told through a lot of shifting environments akin to Silent Hill, where familiar locations like classrooms and auditoriums become bastions of symbolic horrors. The further into the game you get the less grounded in reality these places become, yet this happens because they symbolize events in the real world more closely. You’ll learn plenty about one character’s broken home from a network of nightmare rooms filled with ghosts and needles and connected by a cursed radio. The intensity of the experience builds as you creep closer to the truth, and the closing revelations hit hard enough on a purely human level to make a major payoff.

The gameplay that gets you there is some basic pointing and clicking from a purely side-scrolling perspective. Items and points of interest are highlighted with a question mark when you draw near, so wandering the full extent of a room is sure to reveal everything of note. Puzzles here are plenty unique owing to the cultural influence, but are never confusing and have logical solutions. There’s not much challenge to the game aside from learning how the enemies work, since there’s a very different way of dealing with them than what you’re used to. There’s a curve to it but dying helpfully sends you to a special place with a strange NPC who advises you on what you did wrong.

Topping this package off with vivid, finely-animated graphics and some wonderfully horrifying sound design makes it a near-perfect entry in the genre. The only complaint I can level against it is a common one for quality titles, that being a lack of content to enjoy. Detention shouldn’t take you much more than two hours to complete, with no branching paths and only two endings which depend on answers given in the final area. There’s also an issue of consistency, as the game is split into four parts but the content of each varies pretty wildly in terms of threats and tone. This isn’t really a complaint but more of a warning that if you like something about an early part, it may not return later.

Detention did almost everything I could ask of a psychological horror game. It gave me interesting characters, it gave them depth, it threatened them with a horrifying concept, and it explored all aspects of that horror. If it were longer it might be my new pinnacle of the genre, but for what it is it’s still an impressive piece with the power to rattle anyone. The strange and intense symbolism gives way to fears that anyone, anywhere could have, reflected through events that really took place in the past. It’s a brilliant, terrifying, heartbreaking game that succeeds at everything it sets out to do, and deserves major recognition for it.

Knorth
Aug 19, 2014

Buglord
Heck yeah

What a good game

brand name canned soup
Aug 20, 2009

So no one told you life was gonna be this way
(clap clap clap clap)
Your job's a joke, you're broke, your love life's D.O.A.
(clap clap clap clap)
are there any other surreal/4th-wall horror visual novels that I might like if I liked literature club but otherwise can't really stand anime stuff? the only other one I've ever played is song of saya, which was pretty cool. i mean the whole porn aspect was weird but it kind of worked for me, in that it made me feel really really uncomfortable and complimented the surreal weird gross horror. i dunno, both games just hit me with this disturbing, hopeless tone that i really dig. i guess it was the theme of mental illness that made them click.

I googled around, and skimmed through some LPs of Higurashi and Umineko No Naku Koro Ni, which seem to be 2 of the big ones to check out, but I'm really not feeling the cutesy bullshit and melodrama. maybe i've got the wrong impression tho, i dunno.

brand name canned soup fucked around with this message at 06:17 on Oct 26, 2017

A. Beaverhausen
Nov 11, 2008

by R. Guyovich

Thundercracker posted:

I concur Doki Doki Literature Club is fantastic. It takes about an hour and a half to set up the game though, but after then it's balls out craziness and horror. Don't look up anything about it though. It's really easy to be spoiled.

So I just finished this, that weekend with Yuri was suuuuuper hosed up.

The Saddest Rhino
Apr 29, 2009

Put it all together.
Solve the world.
One conversation at a time.



brand name canned soup posted:

are there any other surreal/4th-wall horror visual novels that I might like if I liked literature club but otherwise can't really stand anime stuff? the only other one I've ever played is song of saya, which was pretty cool. i mean the whole porn aspect was weird but it kind of worked for me, in that it made me feel really really uncomfortable and complimented the surreal weird gross horror. i dunno, both games just hit me with this disturbing, hopeless tone that i really dig. i guess it was the theme of mental illness that made them click.

I googled around, and skimmed through some LPs of Higurashi and Umineko No Naku Koro Ni, which seem to be 2 of the big ones to check out, but I'm really not feeling the cutesy bullshit and melodrama. maybe i've got the wrong impression tho, i dunno.

we know the devil

sigher
Apr 22, 2008

My guiding Moonlight...



al-azad posted:

That's a strange reversal considering Dead Island was all about whacking zombies with Dead Rising esque weaponry.

I loved all 17 hours I put into Dead Island because my character didn't feel incredibly weak. There were times where we were really ill-equipped in Dead Island, but I never felt like I was a helpless geriatric like I feel in Dead Island. Now I wouldn't mind if I hadn't already put 6 hours into Dying Light and my character felt just slightly stronger but nope, all four of us are still just as weak as before but with new skills and the combat is sad.

I just wanted to stomp in zombies with some friends. :smith:

Dreadwroth
Dec 12, 2009

by R. Guyovich

al-azad posted:

I want Soul Reaver to come back so I can get more of... whatever genre of music this is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNWSDvDqm9g

That's a song by Information Society off of the album "Don't Be Afraid", it falls into the goth-industrial music area.
Another track off the same album: https://youtu.be/cWO8nRaDjMk

Too Shy Guy
Jun 14, 2003


I have destroyed more of your kind than I can count.



I've heard rumors that the Steam Halloween sale starts today, so just in time for that I have a game you've never heard of that you definitely shouldn't buy.

:ghost: SPOOKY G4MES: The Ghost Dimension :ghost:

1. Stories Untold
2. Rusty Lake Hotel
3. Rusty Lake: Roots
4. Left in the Dark: No One on Board
5. Daily Chthonicle: Editor's Edition
6. Eleusis
7. Dead Effect
8. Dead Effect 2
9. State of Decay
10. Dead End Road
11. Goetia
12. EMPORIUM
13. F.E.A.R.
14. F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin
15. F.E.A.R. 3
16. The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
17. Bloody Streets
18. Layers of Fear
19. Dark Fall 2: Lights Out
20. Painkiller: Black Edition
21. Doorways: The Underworld
22. Doorways: Holy Mountains of Flesh
23. Yomawari: Night Alone
24. IMSCARED
25. Detention

26. Coma: Mortuary



Every indie horror walking sim seems to think it has enough spooky atmosphere to carry the experience. They eschew monsters and puzzles and even narrative sometimes for the notion that dark halls and mysterious sounds can make their game worth playing. And every game like that I’ve played has been wrong, providing little more than interesting scenery to get bored in. Coma: Mortuary might be the king of these titles, a game so bereft of substance that it could be mistaken for a screensaver with button prompts.

The game opens with the quintessential indie horror hook, a fatal car crash. Instead of being a journey into your guilty psyche, though, this one has you thoroughly and completely dead for a change, transported to the land of the dead where souls roam dingy crypts and sewers. There’s an entire cosmology to this place, full of purpose and history and intrigue, which your character will narrate to you as you wander empty halls and pull levers. You’ll get only the loosest connection between what you’re doing and what the story is, and by the time you start to see it the game will be over.

There’s a lot of problems to unpack in all that but I’m going to rend the gameplay asunder before we return to plot and pacing. This is very much a walking sim, moreso than most games you might want to assign the label to. You can walk, you can look, and you can interact but that last one is only going to be used about a dozen times through the entire game, mainly to pull levers to open doors. The rest of the time you’re just passing through, meandering down hallways on your way to the next hallway and bit of narration. It’s a plodding game in the literal sense, as there’s no sprint and your base movement speed is like when you get hit with some kind of goo effect in a better game.

Dear Esther was pretty clearly the inspiration for Coma, considering the emphasis on wandering and listening to someone tell you a story. There’s no real puzzling to speak of here, just some levers to open doors that require you to wander away from the door for a bit. You won’t be rewarded for exploring, either, not with collectibles (there are none), notes (none of these either), or even just additional dialogue. Going the wrong way is purely a waste of time, made doubly infuriating by the early direction you get to “follow the light”, except half the time the light leads you to dead ends.

The only breaks you’ll get from the endless walking are two chase segments where you get to run instead of walk. I’m not entirely sure the first one counts though, as I got turned around a bit and the creeping darkness supposedly pursuing me never crept up. The second one has an angry lady out to get you which surprised me, and while it wasn’t scary it was a nice change of pace. That’s a big issue with the game, though, that the atmosphere never really works. There are too many samey rooms, too much boring talking, and not enough things happening to sell me on a horror atmosphere. I never felt at all threatened outside the short chases, not even when the game yanks camera control away from you to point you at spooky noises like footsteps or screams.

Coma really likes taking control away from you too, especially for its badly-compressed in-game cutscenes. They’re the saddest things, very clearly the developers recording themselves playing and pretending to get scared at sounds. Transitions between scenes are rough, with hard fade-ins and outs and obnoxious blur effects on you when you appear in new areas. And even when you have full control over your character, he’ll blather on about the history and customs of the land of the dead, telling you all about the neat stuff that happens in the places you wander through instead of, y’know, showing you the things actually happening.

That’s what makes me angrier than anything about the game, honestly. The people behind Coma: Mortuary apparently came up with this whole plot about absent angels and usurpers and castes of souls and eternal prisons and your character’s disruptive presence in all this, and they share the story by reading off bullet points while you walk empty halls. Supposedly this was meant to be the first part of a trilogy and it shows hard, featuring a huge text dump and glimpses of far more interesting things after you finish your mind-numbing hour romp. I could go on about the failings of this title but I’ve already spent more time writing this review than I did playing the stupid thing, and I don’t want to be any more depressed about it than I already am.

Johnny Joestar
Oct 21, 2010

Don't shoot him?

...
...



you know, for the poo poo people give dear esther at least it was pretty to look at and perfectly encapsulated a windswept coastline

this doesn't sound like it even meets that standard

Improbable Lobster
Jan 6, 2012

What is the Matrix 🌐? We just don't know 😎.


Buglord

The Saddest Rhino posted:

we know the devil

It's very good

Too Shy Guy
Jun 14, 2003


I have destroyed more of your kind than I can count.



If y'all want a list of just the good games from my SPOOKY G4MES review series, I've made a list with all the discounted prices and review links here on Steam.

brand name canned soup
Aug 20, 2009

So no one told you life was gonna be this way
(clap clap clap clap)
Your job's a joke, you're broke, your love life's D.O.A.
(clap clap clap clap)

The Saddest Rhino posted:

we know the devil

yeah this looks cool thank you

A. Beaverhausen
Nov 11, 2008

by R. Guyovich
So about doki doki, I don't know it did manage to genuinely creep me out Yuri, every goddamn thing about Yuri but the set up just...look bara games would be more my type, so I had to push through the whole schoolgirl dating poo poo, they did a really good job at making it feel generic dating sim, which is to it's credit, but for instance Pony Island slowly creeped the 'other', Doki Doki makes you wait.

But poo poo, it's 'pay if you want' I'd cautiously recommend it for the patient.

Johnny Joestar
Oct 21, 2010

Don't shoot him?

...
...



brand name canned soup posted:

yeah this looks cool thank you

it leans pretty heavy on a weird, surreal kind of bent to provide 'horror' and the music/art does a good job of helping

there's 4 endings and you want to get them all. it's not a long game.

CuddleCryptid
Jan 11, 2013

Things could be going better

The Saddest Rhino posted:

we know the devil

This is an amazing game but it's worthwhile to read some analysis on it after you are done. It speaks a lot in metaphor and takes a bit of decoding to get to the meat of the story

Lunchmeat Larry
Nov 3, 2012

A. Beaverhausen posted:

So about doki doki, I don't know it did manage to genuinely creep me out Yuri, every goddamn thing about Yuri but the set up just...look bara games would be more my type, so I had to push through the whole schoolgirl dating poo poo, they did a really good job at making it feel generic dating sim, which is to it's credit, but for instance Pony Island slowly creeped the 'other', Doki Doki makes you wait.

But poo poo, it's 'pay if you want' I'd cautiously recommend it for the patient.
Pony Island hits you in the face with its real gimmick in the first minute, to its detriment. I haven't played the spooky vn though

Too Shy Guy
Jun 14, 2003


I have destroyed more of your kind than I can count.



I'm covering three free indie horror titles this weekend, so if you don't feel like shelling out for spooks you can try some of these.

:ghost: SPOOKY G4MES: The Ghost Dimension :ghost:

1. Stories Untold
2. Rusty Lake Hotel
3. Rusty Lake: Roots
4. Left in the Dark: No One on Board
5. Daily Chthonicle: Editor's Edition
6. Eleusis
7. Dead Effect
8. Dead Effect 2
9. State of Decay
10. Dead End Road
11. Goetia
12. EMPORIUM
13. F.E.A.R.
14. F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin
15. F.E.A.R. 3
16. The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
17. Bloody Streets
18. Layers of Fear
19. Dark Fall 2: Lights Out
20. Painkiller: Black Edition
21. Doorways: The Underworld
22. Doorways: Holy Mountains of Flesh
23. Yomawari: Night Alone
24. IMSCARED
25. Detention
26. Coma: Mortuary

27. Disturbed



The original Shadowgate on the NES was one of my favorite games, specifically because it had so many ways to kill you. Some folks regard this as a weakness but I appreciated both the creativity in fatal hazards and the grim, oppressive atmosphere granted by their proliferation. Later on I became similarly enamored with games like IVAN, Spelunky, and TowerClimb for their vast array of mortality-impairing threats. It’s with similar regard that I hold Disturbed, a simple text adventure through a fantasy land that wants you very, very dead. It doesn’t have much more going for it than that, but morbid types will definitely enjoy the ride.

You play a poor, unnamed farmer in a land on the brink of doom. A strange blight has fallen, turning crops to ash and sapping the life from livestock. Without some relief you’ll surely die on your failing farmstead, so you set out in search of something to cure the malaise. Exploring the surrounding environs reveals that the blight is spread far and wide, and you’ll need to take matters into your own hands to stop it. It’s not like you have much of a choice, considering how all-encompassing the inky plague is.

Disturbed plays out over dozens of static, hand-drawn scenes with choices to make in each. They might be as simple as taking the left or right fork in a path, or as complex as solving button codes or navigating mazes. They never get THAT complex, mind you. This is a simple game, forever ushering you along a mostly linear path with few items to keep track of. The game opens up in the latter half to allow you to scurry about and assemble what you need to stop the blight, but again it’s a pretty simple sequence of events.

Every scene and action is described with some solid, moody writing that matches the grim monotones of the graphics perfectly. The words are a constant reminder that the land is dying and you are not safe anywhere, and that’s mostly true because plenty of scenes have parts that can kill you. Some are obvious, like trying to cross a field of black fungus or attacking a bear unarmed. Others, though, are not. Innocuous tasks like reaching into a well or diving into a lake or even laying down in your own bed can earn you a gruesome end and a trip to the main menu. Luckily you can save from any dialogue box, and you’ll need to make the most of that to keep from wasting time on unplanned deaths.

Ultimately the game is a lot of trial-and-error, attempting to do everything until you finally learn the proper sequence in which to do these things. While the deaths never get old I can see how they might grate on some, since it’s virtually impossible to get through the game without dying at least a few times to unclear choices. That’s the real sticking point, that many of the deaths feel unfair for how they sneak up on you unannounced. I’m no fan of this in principle but here it hardly seemed an imposition, granting me enough entertainment from the skeletons and mandibles of my demise to keep me invested.

I managed to finish the game after 45 minutes and a boatload of deaths, so it’s not unthinkable that old adventure fans could finish it even faster. It’s a tight experience with a wonderfully gloomy look and feel, though at the price of killing you stone dead every five minutes or so. The puzzles are simple enough that its really more about what order you complete them in than how you complete them. I can’t say there’s anything super compelling about Disturbed but I enjoyed my time with it, and always looked forward to new deaths on the horizon. Every game needs a hook after all, and there’s no reason this one can’t be strange and varied demises.

DeathChicken
Jul 9, 2012

Nonsense. I have not yet begun to defile myself.

The Mac version of Shadowgate was so much crueler than the NES game. Aside from the Nintendo version just setting you back a room upon death rather than making you rely on saved games, the OG game was full of little gently caress yous to render your game unwinnable. Like the infamous troll wouldn't just kill you, he'd pull the bridge up and never come back. And spells could only be used once, so if you happened to burn through the one spell that would sneak you past him, sucks to be you :v:

Psychedelicatessen
Feb 17, 2012

A. Beaverhausen posted:

I always had a fear of older games when you fell through, that one day some assholes would put a giant gently caress off monster in the abyss. I don't know why, it's an existential kind of fear I guess.

The Brain of Mensis in Bloodborne is kind of what you're describing. I can't think of any other game where you're supposed to go beneath a level and find a thing/monster down in the void.

goferchan
Feb 8, 2004

It's 2006. I am taking 276 yeti furs from the goodies hoard.

Psychedelicatessen posted:

The Brain of Mensis in Bloodborne is kind of what you're describing. I can't think of any other game where you're supposed to go beneath a level and find a thing/monster down in the void.

Huh, I never thought about that but yeah the Brain's area basically is a pitch-black out of zone area , even if you do take an elevator down. The Four Kings fight in Dark Souls works, too, and you literally fall through a bottomless pit to reach them, even if they aren't as spooky .

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GulagDolls
Jun 4, 2011

a giant monster existing somewhere you're not supposed to normally be able to go is pretty scary. I became very paranoid noclipping around in dark souls 3 after a giant static model of a dragon just phased in front of me.

the boss of the sewer level in shadows of the empire was always very stressful to fight as a kid.

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