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I am deeply desirous of an adult review of Stygian. Only seen a few shrieky YouTube glimpses so far.
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Sep 27, 2019 17:56
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I streamed the first two hours of it last night and it's off to a really promising start. Really robust character creation, lots of dialog options with skill checks, combat is a neat turn-based tactics thing where enemies can attack your health or sanity. It also looks great with detailed animations, and has a very cool setting that starts with inescapable cosmic horror and progresses from there. I'll have a full review once I get further into it but that's going to take awhile, depending on how long it is. There's a demo too, if you want to try the early parts yourself.
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Sep 27, 2019 18:06
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Darthemed posted:Is it considerably updated from this? Not sure. My copy on steam is getting multiple updates a day. Don't know if the Itch version is getting that.
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Sep 28, 2019 11:01
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Arise, thread! There is work to be done! Six years! Six years, I've been setting aside the entire month of October to review horror games. One a day, 31 in all. I've got releases from this year, releases from the past few weeks, and even one penciled in that isn't even out yet. There will be lots of good games, a fair number of bad, and almost surely a game or two you haven't heard of. Reviews will go up on my website every day at 8am PDT, and you can check the main Spooky Games page for the full list as it expands. I'll repost these reviews here and on my Steam Curator as soon as I can thereafter, but it might take an hour or two due to... ominous circumstances. First review is tomorrow! And boy... do I have such sights to show you.
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Sep 30, 2019 21:13
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Too Shy Guy posted:Arise, thread! There is work to be done! Awwww gently caress yes. I love these. Partly because I pull from them for my friend's and my game night...but also because I like your little mini (sometimes not so mini) reviews.
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Sep 30, 2019 21:28
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Hey, thanks! And speaking of not-so-mini... I'm electing to start strong, with one of the best games I've played so far for this month. Also got it from the developers, who are very cool folks. SPOOKY GAMES 6: Hellseeker 1. Apsulov: End of Gods    If you spend any time in the indie horror pits, you’re going to find yourself in more haunted houses and asylums than you can count. Creativity is often in short supply when crafting frightful experiences, so those efforts to break out of the same spooky molds should be celebrated. But that’s not the only reason Apsulov: End of Gods deserves high praise, I assure you. On top of having a wholly unique and well-realized setting, this one also tackles some of the toughest challenges of the first-person horror genre, including interaction and engaging exploration. It does so much so well that I’d easily call this one of the top horror experiences of the year. You awaken, as so many horror protagonists do, atop a bloodied operating table. But this is no normal surgical theater, not with the knot of robotic arms and ring of ominous stone heads looming above you. You’re trapped in some sort of high-tech facility steeped heavily in Norse mythology, and the connections between the two are about to become painfully clear. Something terrible happened in this place and you’re at the center of it, both literally and figuratively. If you survive long enough to meet the major players behind this tragedy, you’re bound to learn plenty about the true shape of the world, and how much power you happen to have over it. I’m being careful to avoid story specifics here because there are some truly great revelations to be had as you uncover what all went down at this facility. The backdrop of Norse mythology is a rare one in the horror genre, but it opens up the world to some absolutely fascinating cosmology and some downright terrifying creatures. Adding a layer of science fiction on top of that makes Apsulov one of the most unique horror games you’ll ever play, as all those elements of myth get categorized and grounded in your world as very real, very terrible presences. There’s a great deal of storytelling here, both direct through logs and environmental through labs and setpieces, and it fleshes out the world in ways few games ever manage. The story itself is one hell of a ride, taking some surprising directions as you wind towards the final conflict. You’re hardly alone in the facility, and the figures you meet are hardly what I’d call trustworthy. They’ll also reveal some tantalizing glimpses of the stakes you’re dealing with, which is a welcome expansion of scope on top of the wild and terrifying places you’ll visit in your journey. The techno-mysticism also ends up translating into actual game mechanics, as you’ll get a particularly badass tool to use in dealing with the facility and its dark denizens. I consider this one of Apsulov’s biggest strengths, that it’s not content to keep you in the shadows, skulking around foes and hunting for keys. There is some of that, sure, but with the way they’re designed here you have far more options than just a linear path past enemy A to keycard B. It’s these designs that help Apsulov keep the player engaged more than most indie horror titles, and help it stick with them long after the game is over. Keys, for example, can be found out of order with a little exploration to offer you access to new areas sooner. Some locked doors can also be opened without keys if you have the right resources, if you’re less inclined to go pecking around. Most importantly, there are upgrades and collectibles to find off the beaten path that give you a very compelling reason not to just bee-line from objective to objective. And if that’s not enough, one of your tools is specifically designed to help you locate points of interest and plan your approaches through difficult areas. Thinking back, though, I’m not sure I’d really call any of the areas difficult. I played on the middle difficulty level, which had a fair number of creepy and threatening creatures wandering about for me to deal with. But the stealth in the game is very effective, and that tool I mentioned aids greatly with visibility and tracking enemies. It’s almost too effective, because the developers decided to add plenty of low or no-light areas to compensate for it. Again, you have what you need to get through it, but completely pitch-black areas probably should be used more sparingly than this. There are also a few areas near the end where the foes get dense enough, and your interactions with them frequent enough, to become a little grating. Not long areas, but they are there. What makes up for all of this, though, is the absolutely incredible atmosphere. Just as they did in their previous game, Unforgiving, these developers have mastered the art of making the player feel vulnerable. Right from the very start, you will never know if you are completely safe in a room, hall, or vent. There will always be strange sounds in the background, flitting shadows, and ominous footsteps to stress about. And the moment you think you’ve found a safe spot, the game is liable to correct you. Even the scripted moments come when you least expect them, and carry all the menace of the emergent threats you’ll encounter. There’s only one spot late in the game where I felt the encounter design missed a trick, but other than that brief disappointment, I was on edge the entire way through. Completing Apsulov should take you right around 6 hours, and every moment is sure to be spent exploring, marveling, or panicking. This is a fantastic second effort from a studio who already made a solid impression with their first game, and the lessons learned here have produced one of the finest folk horror games around. Just the creativity on display, merging Norse myth with far-flung technology is worth the price of admission, to say nothing of the expert atmosphere and gratifying game mechanics. It’s not often I get to gush this much about a horror game, but Apsulov: End of Gods checks about every box on my list for a top-tier experience.
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Oct 1, 2019 16:31
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I will double-post if I must to keep the spook train rolling! Lovecraft games don't often succeed in doing the source material justice, something that more developers seem intent on tackling now but this title from 2017 actually does a pretty good job of it. SPOOKY GAMES 6: Hellseeker 1. Apsulov: End of Gods 2. Conarium    It is always interesting to see what route developers take when they intend to adapt Lovecraft. I would say that most merely take monsters or settings and plop them into an experience of their own design, which hardly ever works well. The savvy ones look to capture the tone that Lovecraft evoked, the mounting mystery that leads to overwhelming terror that no hope can repel. When a developer actually succeeds at doing this, as those behind Conarium did, the result is a truly singular experience. Not every part of Conarium works as well as the atmosphere, mind you, but it feels like an understatement to say they got the important part right. You are Frank Gilman, and you awaken to a strange device flashing otherworldly signals into your face. That proves to be the least of your concerns, because the Antarctic base you find yourself in is entirely deserted. Disturbing notes detail the team’s strange experiments and discoveries, bizarre life forms lie dormant in the laboratories, and something ominous stirs deep beneath the base. Coping with terrible revelations about your own part in this expedition, you are urged through caverns and ruins lost to history by a voice on the other end of a radio. But no good can come of unbridled curiosity when eldritch forces are involved. I’ll avoid spoiling as much about the story as the store page does (seriously, don’t read it), but this is very clearly a tale set alongside Lovecraft’s own At the Mountains of Madness. Frank’s journey will take you from the forlorn base through a tour of some quintessentially Lovecraftian locales, complete with references to the mythos and representations of the more famous creatures. Along the way you’ll find loads of notes, sketches, and maps that expand the scope of the story and help place Frank in his role for this drama. There are a few particularly impactful discoveries that are left entirely to the player to acknowledge, which is a refreshing change from revelations in most horror games being dropped with huge stingers and setpieces. I mean, Conarium still has those moments, of course. That’s a hallmark of Lovecraft’s tales of horror, the slow build to the great DUN DUN DUNNN moment at the very end. They haven’t forgotten this, and Conarium has a truly excellent ending (well, one of the two at least) that fits perfectly with Lovecraft’s own flair for the dramatic. And the road to get there is lined with the very sort of quiet, dreadful exploration that filled his stories. The atmosphere is what makes this game work so incredibly well, the long stretches of wandering, investigating, and puzzling out meanings that lead to yet more terrible discoveries. This is not a game lousy with jumpscares or chase scenes, and when they do happen it’s to very effectively remind the player that they are trespassing in places never meant for humans. As effective as it is, it won’t be what everyone is looking for in a horror game. Parts of the game are indeed quite slow, and getting tripped up on any of the puzzles can draw that out into moments of tedium. This is not a puzzle-heavy game and the puzzles that are present tend to be simple environmental affairs, but failing to notice an interaction prompt or an open door may lead to some needless wandering. There’s not much feedback on the actual game systems, and this carries over to moments where you are actually threatened. Without spoiling too much I will say that there is an achievement for completing the game without dying, and I have it, and I’m honestly not sure why given some of the things I think happened. It’s really quite a minor quibble against a game focused so heavily on atmosphere and mystery, though. Conarium does exactly what it needs to do, which is capture the nigh-unfathomable dread that comes of exploring something entirely out of your depth. There are moments that blur the lines between past and present, memory and experience, and they’re far more effective than the illusory horrors you get in other indie titles. The graphics carry much of the game with moody, colorful environments rich in detail (though I’m not a fan of how your flashlight washes things out), and the soundtrack is muted or oppressive right when it works best. Games that channel the spirit of Lovecraft are rare, but Conarium succeeds in all the most important ways and makes a compelling adventure of it.
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Oct 2, 2019 16:26
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Hey guys how's Routine
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Oct 2, 2019 19:51
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Songbearer posted:Hey guys how's Routine Boo this man
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Oct 2, 2019 20:08
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Songbearer posted:Hey guys how's Routine Died before birth, knows no sorrow.
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Oct 2, 2019 20:10
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I’m several years late on doki doki literature club but I started playing today. Are there any gotchas I should know about? I know it does some weird file stuff.
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Oct 2, 2019 21:00
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Bogart posted:I’m several years late on doki doki literature club but I started playing today. Are there any gotchas I should know about? I know it does some weird file stuff. Its one of those...games that you should go into blind. Its not long, just dive in. Hot Take Alert: its also super overrated but fine.
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Oct 2, 2019 21:19
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Bogart posted:I’m several years late on doki doki literature club but I started playing today. Are there any gotchas I should know about? I know it does some weird file stuff. Accordion Man fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Oct 2, 2019 |
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Oct 2, 2019 21:26
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Me: hey is there anything I should know going in Goons: THAT IT SUCKS Me: cool thanks
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Oct 2, 2019 21:47
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It is an interesting game and people say that it is derivative but that isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it is also a visual novel. If you aren't a fan of visual novels, this isn't going to turn it around for you. Much of the horror relies on the visual novel pacing and aesthetic. So basically if you enjoy VNs and want a neat short free horror VN, it'll be fine, but if you already aren't a fan of VNs, it is going to be a pain to get through.
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Oct 2, 2019 22:08
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Bogart posted:Me: hey is there anything I should know going in  But yeah, what First Aid Kite said. It's a Visual Novel and there is really no hint that anyone could give you which would not be a spoiler, because clicking every option and seeing every ending is basically how those are played. You really can't do anything wrong, per se, because even a bad end is still part of the content that you paid to see. It might not hurt to write down which choices you already made, though, if only so you don't do anything twice.
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Oct 2, 2019 22:17
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Here's something I don't recall being discussed here. SPOOKY GAMES 6: Hellseeker 1. Apsulov: End of Gods 2. Conarium 3. TAMASHII    You know why there are so many first-person horror games, right? Because that’s the easiest way to reach the level of immersion needed to spook a player. It can be done in other genres, as gems like Darkwood and Lone Survivor have shown, but it takes a considerably greater mastery of the genre. TAMASHII makes a good effort, and lands squarely in the creepy/icky section of horror games. Coupled with its clever puzzles, tantalizing secrets, and bizarre cosmology, I’d say that’s plenty to cement this one as a solid horror platformer. You have been brought into being by a powerful entity and given a single purpose. The temple belonging to this deity has been corrupted, and you are to purge the place of evil. It’s a simple enough task, as the evil is helpfully contained to just five specific chambers. But there are other entities in the temple, and their aims are not as clear as simple good versus evil. Indeed, your efforts will reveal the horrendous nature of the place, and more about its denizens than you might want to know. But there is a chance for you to transcend the bounds of your existence, and perhaps find a purpose beyond the grim task laid before you by an uncaring god. TAMASHII claims to be inspired by underground Japanese games of the 80s and 90s, but I don’t really see much of that. The meaty, twisted, blasphemous, sometimes-Geiger art combined with the heavy glitching and scanline effects remind me more of older fringe point-and-click titles or even the subversive cartoons of early MTV than anything. Regardless of what you see in this morass, I can’t deny how effective it is in giving the game an intensely grimy, sinister feel from start to finish. There’s no relief from this oppressive grotesquerie, from the cold metal blades and pulsating meat coating the chamber walls to the charred corpses and goat-headed statues of the temple. And the further you get the more twisted the visuals become, until you’re battling demon fetuses and watching infernal creatures gently caress. If all that sounds pretty edgy, I think that’s a fair assessment. There’s no deeper symbolism in TAMASHII to explain away demon penises, it’s simply an expression of how warped and depraved this world is. It will absolutely be too much for some folks, but for others it’s a rather unique pushing of limits into Hellraiser territory that isn’t often seen in modern gaming. The cosmology saves it from being mindless shock for shock’s sake, with the horrors you experience being a result of the greater forces at work around you. If you start tracking down the game’s many secrets this is expanded in some delightfully meta ways, capped off by a pretty surprising ending that makes the most of a simple but clever gimmick. That cleverness extends to the gameplay, even if that aspect isn’t terribly unique. The five chambers of the temple are arranged as series of puzzle rooms leading up to a boss encounter. All you have to tackle these challenges with is your double-jump and the ability to conjure grim totems that activate switches and sigils. You can summon three totems at a time, and they disintegrate after a short time (which you can also speed up yourself). Most puzzles, then, are a matter of using totems to hold switches to allow you to pass different barriers or obstacles. It’s a simple setup but between the five chambers there’s plenty of variety, enough to carry the game’s 90-minute runtime. The bosses are more of a mixed bag but are even more varied than the puzzles, and seeing what greater unspeakable horror lies ahead is one of the game’s little pleasures in progression. Being only 90 minutes might give some folks pause, but honestly TAMASHII is exactly as long as it needs to be. The super edgy presentation and visual nightmares would threaten to grate after a few hours, so ending before they wear out their welcome is a smart move. It’s a satisfying game for a single sitting or two, especially once you get in a groove with the puzzles and start uncovering the game’s strange secrets. Is it scary? There really isn’t anything that’s going to make you jump, but the overwhelming grotesqueness of the world is sure to make you uneasy. It’s a unique little title in tone and presentation, and something that fans of off-beat horror should not pass up.
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Oct 3, 2019 16:22
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Too Shy Guy posted:TAMASHII claims to be inspired by underground Japanese games of the 80s and 90s, but I don’t really see much of that. Does it say which ones, and could you please talk more about that / those?
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Oct 3, 2019 17:30
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They weren't posted anywhere, so I asked the developer directly. Nothing I've played, unfortunately. https://twitter.com/vf_vikintor/status/1179806117620264961
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Oct 3, 2019 18:16
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Paranoiascape is sister to Deadly Premonition as a horrible game I love.
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Oct 3, 2019 19:01
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There's a horror themed crpg out on steam called Stygian and it's pretty neat. Apparently the devs ran out of money and it ends with a lot of plot threads unresolved, but I'm honestly pretty happy with what I've played. It feels like Fallout but with crappier combat and on a lovecraftian setting.
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Oct 3, 2019 19:52
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Too Shy Guy posted:They weren't posted anywhere, so I asked the developer directly. Nothing I've played, unfortunately. Oh, thank you! Garage: Bad Dream Adventure is apparently not related to Garage: Bad Trip
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Oct 3, 2019 20:35
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Skyscraper posted:Oh, thank you! And neither of them are the garage related: make sure it's closed https://corpsepile.itch.io/make-sure-its-closed
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Oct 3, 2019 23:47
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Tamashii is also coming to Switch too if I remember right.
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Oct 4, 2019 00:08
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I've gotten a number of indie horror games from their developers through Steam in the lead-up to this series, and this was one of the most promising of that crop. Was. SPOOKY GAMES 6: Hellseeker 1. Apsulov: End of Gods 2. Conarium 3. TAMASHII 4. Apparition    Why aren’t there more ghost hunting games? It’s been a popular profession since at least the Ghostbusters, and the gaming world has always been quick to add weapons and combat to things that don’t need them. But no, typically ghosts in indie horror games are content to run past open doorways, break vases, and generally be dicks until they get to kill you in the ending cutscene. Not so in Apparition, though, where you’ll be combing the woods for unnatural sorts, committing them to film, and then ideally escaping with your life. It’s a neat idea for a game, and if it could stick to that concept and flesh it out instead of… whatever it’s doing, it might even be fun. Honestly, I’ve already pretty much run down the plot for you. You’re a paranormal investigator who pays the bills by filming their discoveries (and apparently sells to the Sun or something, since no one seems to care you’re capturing GHOSTS on FILM). There’s a particularly haunted stretch of woods where people keep disappearing (again, that only you seem to care about), the perfect place to farm pics assuming you’ve got the right equipment. You can leave at any time by retreating to your car, and you’ll earn cash for whatever you’ve recorded which can be spent on new recording tools or other items that let you interact with the area. You’ll find a cabin and a few campsites in the area too, which may contain clues to the creatures you’re liable to run into. Just so we’re clear, there’s one map in the game. Everything you do is going to be on this one plot of dark forest, which takes less than a minute to cross. It’s entirely static aside from the notes you can find, including sketches of the monsters with bits about their behavior, and questions you can ask them. The questions are used with a Ouiji board you carry with you and can set near the main camp, allowing you to speak to and identify the critters that are going to come and murder you. This is probably the neatest part of the game, because you get some genuinely creepy responses and can even type in your own questions which the spirits will respond to. Once you’re done communing, it’s time to wander the woods in search of one of the game’s creatures. Creeping through the underbrush is definitely a tense experience, and spotting a knife-wielding ghost or thing without a face can be quite the rush, I admit. However, to get to that point you’ll need to do quite a bit of wandering, during which you’ll be subject to a screamer jumpscare about every five minutes or so. This thing is completely harmless and absolutely inexplicable, because it’s not something you can film, banish, or interact with in any way. It’s the very definition of a cheap jumpscare, and ruins the tension of stalking things that have every intention of stalking you. Eventually you’ll suffer through that to the point of finding a monster, record what you can, and get the hell out of there. And… that’s pretty much it. You’ll upgrade your stuff eventually by doing the same song and dance over and over, on the same map, hunting for the same monsters. It’s like the supernatural version of theHunter: Call of the Wild, except with a fraction of the content so small you could blink and miss it. In my hour-plus of wandering the woods I had one exciting encounter where I risked it all to film a murderous ghost and barely got back to my car before she ended me. My reward for that was not enough of anything to unlock new stuff, and I wasn’t about to endure another 20 minutes of hunting and pecking for the chance of another satisfying emergent encounter. The other thing I want to point out is that Apparition has been in Early Access for about a year. I tried it when it first launched, and I tried it ten months later, and there’s been essentially no change in the experience. It’s missed its planned release back in July, and the developer hasn’t posted about it in months. Instead, the Steam announcements are full of advertisements for other games from the publisher and occasional deep discounts on this one. I don’t normally examine the actual state of Early Access for games I review, but I also don’t normally review ones that are acting this shady. Apparition definitely isn’t a complete or even satisfying experience now, and significant doubts that it ever will be make it impossible to recommend.
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Oct 4, 2019 16:26
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wyoming posted:And neither of them are the garage related: make sure it's closed (Garage: Bad Trip is kind of garage related, but certainly not as much as Make Sure It's Closed)
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Oct 4, 2019 17:56
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Too Shy Guy posted:
I know these are all up on your website but I'm behind a webfilter right now and wanted to re-read some of the old posts, so here are the links: Spooky Games Five: 2018 Spooky Four: 2017 Spooky 3: 2016 Spooky 2: 2015 The Original Spooky Games, AKA the 31 Games of October, 2014
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Oct 4, 2019 18:22
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Thanks for reposting those! A lot of older horror games never really go bad... I actually started up Amnesia: The Dark Descent last night on stream and that game is still shockingly scary. Speaking of older games, last year I covered Little Nightmares (you can read that entirely unsurprising review here), so I thought this year would be a good time to tackle its DLC. SPOOKY GAMES 6: Hellseeker 1. Apsulov: End of Gods 2. Conarium 3. TAMASHII 4. Apparition 5. Secrets of the Maw (DLC)    The original release of Little Nightmares gave players a tantalizing look at The Maw, a sort of grim pleasure cruiser of titanic proportions for some absolutely unspeakable beings. Plenty of questions were left unanswered by that harrowing journey, and Secrets of the Maw seeks to address some of the concurrent ones to the plot and setting, rather than push past the ending. It’s content that promises more of what you enjoyed about the base game, with some new revelations and even a few surprises. While it might hew a bit too close to the original in terms of gameplay, it features a fantastic side story that acts as a fine companion piece to an already solid adventure. While the rain-coatted Six is off mantling about the Maw, the enigmatic Kid rouses from their slumber and sets about escaping the certain doom of captivity. This journey is cleanly split into three episodes, which intersect with the exploits of Six at points. The first, The Depths, is perhaps the most unique in its setting from the base game. Scampering about in refuse piles and contending with pipes and cisterns of filthy water, the Kid will also a new threat not seen anywhere else in the Maw. This thing is particularly chilling in its appearance and mechanics, making some of the platforming sequences all the more terrifying and the eventual resolution all the more satisfying. All told, it’s a strong start for the DLC that captures what’s good about Little Nightmares with some new twists. In contrast, the second episode, The Hideaway, returns the Kid to some well-trod sections of the Maw. Several foes from the base game also make an appearance, posing similar challenges to the Kid as the ones you surely faced during Six’s journey. It’s not a huge disappointment, as they’re still quite effective monsters, but after escaping a wholly new threat in The Depths it’s a bit of a let down. What is new here, though, are some puzzle mechanics involving the adorable cone-hatted Nomes that require more exploration and planning than ever before. There’s also an interesting hub structure to the back half of this episode, which has you combing wings of an industrial section of the ship for more of your new Nome buddies. The journey ends in The Residence, a return to the final areas of the original game and a meeting with the Maw’s enigmatic ruler. At first I feared some of the tension in this episode being sapped by the ending of the original, but there are more than enough threats, portends, and revelations here to provide all the tension you could want. Unlike most linear areas in Little Nightmares and previous DLC, The Residence is mostly open for you to explore and comb for clues and puzzles. It changes as you make progress towards your goal, as well, which only adds to the mounting dread. This is also the only chapter with significant challenges, as some of the foes that come after you can be a little tricky to manage with the tools you have. The culmination of this side story is a one-two punch of revelations and emotions. You’ll learn the secret behind one of the Maw’s most persistent mysteries, and then witness that lead into a total gut-punch of an ending. It’s a fantastic tie-in to the original story and gives both tales so much more weight and meaning, but be prepared for the onset of intense feels. All told the story of Secrets of the Maw is just as solid as that of Little Nightmares, with a similar degree of drama and twists that keep you on your toes. The fact that they connect so well in the end only cements this outing as a must-have for fans of the original. It’s very much more of what you liked before, just given some new dimensions and meanings that are sure to be appreciated.
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Oct 5, 2019 18:22
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Late last night I caught a stream of Signal Simulator, in which you play as a scientist seeking extraterrestrial signals ala SETI. It’s absolutely a simulator game with lots of tasks and absolutely not a horror game where aliens could be peeking at you at any moment. As a kid who grew up when Communion was a thing and Unsolved Mysteries featured alien abduction segments it’s the most tense game I’ve watched in ages.
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Oct 6, 2019 16:12
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For today's horror fix, there's a pair of point-and-clicks in the Bad Dream series I've been curious about for awhile. The first one here is pretty okay, and bumps itself up to good if you can stick it out to the end. SPOOKY GAMES 6: Hellseeker 1. Apsulov: End of Gods 2. Conarium 3. TAMASHII 4. Apparition 5. Secrets of the Maw (DLC) 6. Bad Dream: Coma    There’s a section of the point-and-click adventure genre that seemed to evolve with the rise of Newgrounds and flash games. These tended to be first-person experiences, heavy on puzzles like escaping from rooms, and often leaned heavily on horror. Bad Dream: Coma is a prime example of this type, a journey through macabre dreamscapes by way of locked doors and lost teddy bears. It carves out a nice little niche for itself with a unique art style and some interesting mechanics, but makes the mistake of saving all the really good stuff for late in the game. You find yourself upon a ruined bridge into a city in the throes of despair. The inhabitants of this place cannot die, and are being tormented by dark forces beyond their understanding. You, for some reason, are in a unique position to address these fears and uncover the causes of this hellish blight. But doing so will require contending with nightmarish creatures, twisted puzzles, and some utterly bizarre logic to progress. Reaching the end of this journey is only half the battle, too, because you will be judged on how you reached it as well. Bad Dream: Coma has a couple things going for it over other point-and-clicks, and one of them is that last bit I just mentioned. There are three endings to the game, determined not by some final flipping of switches but rather your conduct throughout your journey. Many puzzles in the game have multiple solutions, and finding creative ways around some of the more unpleasant situations can net you the good ending. Alternatively, going out of your way to ruin puzzles and lives can get you a particularly bad ending. Your status screen keeps track of everything you’ve done that puts you on these paths, helpfully color-coding them as positives and negatives and straight up scratching out possible endings if you botch them. Endings are only a small part of the game, though. Most of your time in the horrific landscapes of Bad Dream: Coma will be spent clicking around scenes for items and clicking on everything else with them to figure out how they’re used. Despite having multiple solutions, many of the puzzles in the game can trip you up with unintuitive interactions and bizarre logic. Narratively it makes sense, given what you learn about the world you’re stuck in, but in terms of gameplay it can be frustrating at times. You’re also bound to get lost between some of the static screens, as they don’t always connect logically. Sometimes clicking right from one screen, and then clicking down from the next, will bring you back to where you started for some reason. There are some really interesting gimmicks that make the most of the setting, like a pair of apartments with a really novel connection between them and a forest area that interacts with the aesthetic in a very cool way. However, these areas all fall in the last 30 minutes or so of the game. Everything leading up to that is fairly standard pointing and clicking, rummaging around dingy environments and pixel-hunting for the stick that completes the ladder up to the dead bird nest. The themes in the game are appropriately dark but border on needlessly edgy at times, given how loosely the story is threaded through the experience. At least some of it is funny, like the running joke with the finger trauma your mouse cursor goes through. For the most part, this is a baseline horror adventure with few scenes meaningful enough to be memorable. There’s some genuinely good stuff late in the game, but it’s hard to recommend clicking through the middling first two hours to get to it. It’s quite a good-looking game with its sketchbook aesthetic and clean lines, even when depicting filth. If anything, it feels like a game that didn’t really find its focus until the end, and no one went back to revise the earlier parts once they did. For basic horror puzzling, Bad Dream: Coma won’t disappoint, but if you’re expecting something more then you’re going to be waiting for awhile.
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Oct 6, 2019 20:14
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There was a game whose trailer was posted here I think 1-2 years ago whose name I've forgotten, involving running through trenches and hiding from a gigantic monster that seemed to be praying when it was first shown off. Does anyone remember this? Did it ever come out or is it still in production?
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Oct 6, 2019 22:05
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I remember it, but I don't remember the name. I think it mostly sticks in my mind because when I saw it, I was reminded of basically the same game, but with a velociraptor chasing you instead.
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Oct 6, 2019 22:27
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Yeah, there was this recent horror-ish jank game that had you go do nature camp and find it overrun with dinosaurs. It was really weird and looked like something out of the early 2000s.
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Oct 6, 2019 22:35
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Cardiovorax posted:Yeah, there was this recent horror-ish jank game that had you go do nature camp and find it overrun with dinosaurs. It was really weird and looked like something out of the early 2000s.
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Oct 6, 2019 22:39
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catlord posted:I remember it, but I don't remember the name. I think it mostly sticks in my mind because when I saw it, I was reminded of basically the same game, but with a velociraptor chasing you instead. You're probably thinking of this https://venturebeat.com/2011/05/28/they-hunt-you-in-the-trenches-of-1916-der-unbekannte-krieg/ Cardiovorax posted:Yeah, there was this recent horror-ish jank game that had you go do nature camp and find it overrun with dinosaurs. It was really weird and looked like something out of the early 2000s. I'm gonna need more info because it's coming up on cheap jank horror game season
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Oct 6, 2019 22:41
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Len posted:I'm gonna need more info because it's coming up on cheap jank horror game season Pretty sure it's Oakwood.
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Oct 6, 2019 22:45
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Len posted:You're probably thinking of this I was! I just looked it up trying to find out the one kvx687 was talking about. Ad Infinitum, apparently. Things don't look great on that front.
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Oct 6, 2019 22:45
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Too Shy Guy posted:Pretty sure it's Oakwood.
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Oct 6, 2019 22:47
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I wanted to say they're talking about escape from bug island, but that was only on the Wii and came out in 2007. At least I'm pretty sure that had dinosaurs in it. It definitely had giant bugs and a giant gorilla in it. It was also terrible and janky partially due to motion controls.
FruitPunchSamurai fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Oct 6, 2019 |
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Oct 6, 2019 22:50
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catlord posted:I was! I just looked it up trying to find out the one kvx687 was talking about. Ad Infinitum, apparently. Things don't look great on that front. Yeah I thought it was dead, too. Their Facebook page seems to suggest that they'll be at EGX Berlin in November, though, so maybe they've...come back from the dead? https://www.facebook.com/adinfinitumgame/
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Oct 6, 2019 23:38
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