Fascinating psychological horror indie, a bit Lynchian in its uncanny surrealism, a bit bleak too and a whole lot of ominous. Persistent confusion, cute/ugly PSX-inspired graphics, layers of depth and batteries included.

This is one of those plots where sometimes drastically different (reality, time, visuals) parts of it are strung together by a loose, barely coherent thread that keeps weaving in and out of sight, and yet it manages to present a player with a compelling narrative, nonetheless. “Compelling” doesn’t equal “discernable”, by the way, or “non ambiguous”. It just means you’ll end up feeling along the lines of “What was this all about?” together with “Ah, never mind, it was quite eerie and fun regardless”. Here’s a fairly straightforward chunk of the story, a tad artistically gritty but with a meaning one can catch. And a moment later, you’re standing in front of the castle talking to statues about their car keys because they need to skip town. One minute you’re in a van with your best friend looking for mysterious Ant Farm, next – you’re sitting over a chess set with a white dove, talking about “Fat Hotline” where you can press a button, depending on whether you want to be more fat or less. You know, the usual.

It's a narrative-centered game, so the story is king here, and all the creative perplexity aside, it manages to pull off a very decent horror atmosphere. It’s not in-your-face-loud or hard-hitting, but more like a slight buzzing that is always in the back of your head, telling you that something is very wrong here, but you can’t quite understand what. It completes itself with effective environmental scares and imaginative creepy visuals. And while walking and having dialogues and visions would take up most of your time, you also always have a task to accomplish or occasional puzzle to solve. None of it is challenging or, I believe, even meant to be such, and all of it just adds to the overall uneasiness of neither the character you play nor you, the player, knowing what’s going on and being on guard all the time.

The unwieldy controls that you’ll use to navigate through these shenanigans deserve a separate mention. They are tank controls on mushrooms. And, I suppose, it’s a testament to the storytelling that this is a positive review. Masochists, this one's for you.

Visuals that set out to be cinematic don’t help that “controls situation” one bit, as you going to be slammed with a plethora of angles that change every few seconds. Not sure if having that many added anything to the narrative or simply scratched some artistic itch, but I could have done without them trying to control poor Mark. Other than that, trendy PSX aesthetic brings a familiar “so ugly, it’s kinda cute” look only nostalgia can invoke. There are a few visually interesting surrealistic sequences woven into all that retro glory, and for everything 10 Dead Doves has proven to be - it works well for its designed purpose, as the atmosphere stays unnerving throughout the entire journey.

The score is on par as it’s also crosses into “cinematic” and does so successfully, ramping up the tension when needed and doing the mandatory sharp/crazy violin sound indicating tension, you know the one. Voice-over is also top-notch, although it took me a second to get used to slightly nasal tone of Mark, and a bit dorky, on the edge of the flu Sean’s tone. They acted their lines superbly, and so did everyone else no matter how weird (and, boy, it gets weird) the lines and voices themselves happened to be. There’s even a little musical number. I’m still not sure whether I was surprised or not at all, considering the rest of the game.

10 Dead Doves is a quality story-centric horror that would be appreciated more by those who don’t mind philosophical discourse, head-scratching poetry, mind-bending surreal sequences and a solid dose of “figure out yourself what that means, OK?” along with their horror. And the horror part is well-done here, but in order to be savored you’ll need to pick through all that baggage it brought along, and while I found it enjoyable and, at times, confusing, this isn’t your “take my mind off things and just have fun” experience, this is more of “I feel like challenging my brain with unwinding some twisty story I may never fully understand” one. It’s a good one, really, but better suited for certain kinda player or a certain kinda mood

A game with large ambitions that's dripping with creativity, but feels stifled by a shoestring crowd funded budget. The biggest strength of 10 Dead Doves is derived from the personal touch brought into the game by the two protagonists, who are played by two actors that are clearly friends in real life. The interactions between Mark and Sean are a high point and the devs used their limited budget effectively to create a stylized graphics style. However, certain aspects of the game felt like they were held back by the minimal budget, such as the gameplay and limited opportunities to fully flesh out the world, as the studio clearly wished to do.

Ultimately, it's a worthwhile experience and I look forward to more work from this studio. Hopefully they will return to this universe and continue to flesh out the creative ideas they have established.

A horror game with a good sense of humor, really feels like 2 guys that have known each other forever and have their own internal language are hanging out. Really love it.