Recent reviews by Cornisgud

I like the game play as I did in the first one. Trying to figure out what happened in the scenario and piecing things together can be fun. I think the first one had a lot more interesting scenarios that were also larger in scale and each felt more important to the overarching story than this one. They all had something to do with the story, just some seemed less impactful and like tiny occurrences that we didn't really need to see.

The occasional "I know precisely what happened in the scenario but not really sure how it wants me to word it" pops back up sometimes.

Overall it's good though not as good as the first. I think The Spider of Lanka represented the series moving forward where as this represented it moving slightly backward.

If you enjoyed the first one you'll get some enjoyment out of this at least.

It's got very good atmosphere an interesting premise, some strong moments, and a couple good puzzles. It nails the classic horror feel as well. The first half is a lot stronger than the back half. Maybe I just didn't fully /get/ it but story wise it felt it kinda went no where and after 2 playthroughs I'm still not entirely clear on why some of the supernatural stuff that happens actually occurs.

It's decent. It's not expensive and because it has a really good atmosphere and setup I think it's worth the time for a classic horror fan.

My Charlie-Mac

2 biggest issues:
- Your deck doesn't improve between runs because you keep nothing. You don't get to select a couple cards or something that you earned on the run to become stronger, you just don't improve.

- Want to edit your deck? Well beating an enemy allows you to EITHER get a new card OR remove a single card from your deck. Why on earth is removing a card from my deck tied to a reward system rather than just letting me edit it?

My experience: First run got all the way to the dragon and had a 23 point advantage passing my final turn and the dragon played 1 card that made me lose by 2 points. Didn't get my key card in my draws nor a couple of the other cards I'd been combo-ing so RNG was unkind but it happens. Well, fine I'll adjust and fight him again. Just kidding the run is now over. Go to start a new run, the upgrade to my key card I gained and every card I earned in the run was lost. At least it let me know it wasted an hour and 18 minutes of my life. Obviously not making another run.

Game is awesome. Plays really well, super responsive, simple and I actually did feel some tension in parts which hasn't happened in a game in a long time. No jump scares or anything. Campaign is short but absolutely worth it. There's a ton of callbacks to old school survival horror games.

EDIT: I'm editing the review because the response from the dev fixed my crash issues on the Dungeon run, thanks!

Crash fix: https://steamproxy.com/app/1848450/discussions/0/3382778848138142883/

I think overall the game is very unique and worth playing. Especially at the price tag of 2.99.

I really like the art style and the idea of taking care of the kids through the ordeal. The focus never feels like "I need to stay alive" more "♥♥♥♥, needa save a kid. Alright now the next one."

Story feels like a Netflix horror movie setup but I appreciated that given it was kinda what it felt like I was playing. It's told through text messages you get on your phone. I liked the feeling of protecting the kids from monsters or ghosts and not knowing if it's all in your head.

As far as the difficulty goes, it's actually really easy... except for one thing I'm going to complain about under mechanics.

Playing the game:
You have a list of tasks on a cork board to do (like clean up trash, move boxes etc...). When your list is done you can go to bed. Successfully go to bed every night and you're good. Eventually the tasks upgrade to things like "Survive the night" and so you'll need to deal with some obstacles before you're allowed to go to bed.

Mechanics:

You
- You have a stamina meter that allows you to hold shift and move fast for about 4 steps. This also functions as your health.
- Whenever you get hit by a monster you lose 1 stamina point.
- If you lose all stamina points and then get hit 1 more time you die and will have to restart the night.
- Lost stamina points can be regained by either making it through the night or finding one of the big white orbs hidden around the house. (They spawn when you take a hit and they're placed very generously.)
- If you run into the monster it "attacks" you and disappears. (It should be noted this will mostly only happen by accident if the kids are alive as the monster just goes after them.)
- If the kids are attacked by the monster it will have them pinned and you will need to save them by running up to it and left clicking. (At first it's a flash from your phone, then a gun that shoots.)
- About 2 1/2 - 3 hours in a gun replaces your phone.
- The gun is super generous for hitting the monster. Vaguely pointing in the direction of the monster and pulling the trigger will result in it being shot.
- The gun is even more generous for hitting your kids. If they are shot they will immediately die and you cannot do anything (even immediately exit the game) to get them back. Some 3 hours in I have my kids both in the 90% well being range, survive night 14 for awhile, the monster is trying to sprint for Kyle who's head is barely showing to my bottom left, 2 feet below the height of the pistol and behind how far Mary is holding the gun out to. I take a shot at the monster coming at us center screen, Kyle dies forever. I almost left a do not recommend because something like "The kid cannot be anywhere on the screen when you pull the trigger or a save all kids run is immediately dead" shouldn't be conveyed 3 hours in.
- The above does not apply if your kid is pinned. Best I can tell there is no way to accidentally shoot your kid when the monster has them pinned. In those cases just shoot freely. (The kid screams and it shows a quick video of where they are in the house, you'll know when they're "Pinned")

Your Kids
- Your kids can die and if they do it's permanent (Even if you quit the game the moment they do. The night will start at the beginning, but the kid just won't be there anymore.) They have a "Well Being" % which is like their health bar. You can see where they're at every night when you go to sleep successfully.
- Your kids dying does not make you lose, even if both of them die.
- You can increase well being when you have an option to "reassure" your kid, help your kid up after they've been knocked down by the monster, clicking "bring to bed" and walking them into their room (Make sure you do this every chance you get), or by giving them a cookie (one is hidden somewhere in the house every night.)
- Monster attacks decrease your kid's well being so save them quickly.
- You'll know when they're attacked because you'll hear them scream and a video will show you where in the house they are pinned.

House:
- Lights can be turned on in rooms to gain visibility from end to end. If the light is off you can only see within a couple feet in front of you. (Really only relevant if a monster has your kid pinned in the room, though.)
- A power mechanic gets introduced a little ways in where only a certain number of lights and appliances can be on at a given time or the power will go out.
- A little ways in appliances begin turning on and count as one thing you're allowed to have on. You can go turn them off.
- Eventually you can board up windows and vents to slow the monster down entering. This also makes an audible noise as it must chew through the board before it can get in. (You can shoot it while it's chewing and it will run off.)

Some help on locations of the vents and windows if you're having trouble finding them:
Windows
- 2 in Kayla's room
- 1 in Kyle's room (You'll notice he always opens it cause Kyle's a little ♥♥♥♥)
- 2 in the living room
- 2 in the kitchen

Vents "That lead outside"
- 1 in the Laundry room
- 1 in the Bathroom
- 1 next to the front door of the apartment.

Not optimized well for the PC so there's a lot of weird bugs, graphics glitches, crashes, framerate drops etc. . . Some other stuff that I'm unsure if it's due to the port is the occasional invincible enemy, and sometimes in an area I won't be able to interact with lootable objects, enemies in an area will all just suddenly alert when I'm sitting in tall grass.

I can't even recommend the game its self. It's not done or something. The mechanics are a combination of stealth and dodging/attacking on the run but neither work very well. The games movement is too clunky, Aloy moves like she's slipping on ice and she constantly gets stuck on tiny rocks and trees you don't seem to actually be running into. A jump using the same input can send you either an inch or a mile, who knows. Stealth kills and attacking grounded enemies locks you into unescapable incredibly long and slow animations that something else can just walk up and kill you in, or you can burn to death, or electrocuted etc. . .

When enemies attack they float slide around at variable speeds and random directions. It's hard to describe they just like, slide around or fly through the air changing directions sporadically when coming at you. They don't lunge in a straight line or anything. Their direction and speed will change multiple times midair. 12 hours in I will still die in 2 hits and enemies weird attack animations allow a single lunge to register on you twice.

I have a couple other issues with it but I think I hit on the ones that rip the enjoyment from the game.

It sucks because some of the characters seemed interesting and I was interested in the story but the gameplay is just too clunky and unfinished feeling so I won't be finishing it nor recommending it.

Eh. It's no Doom 2016. It's not terrible, I'd say 6/10. Can't recommend it though.

- Ammo has been replaced with platforming lol. Real talk though there's a ton of platforming and you can only hold small amounts of ammo.
- Really lean into this goofy story where they make doom guy some like redemption seeking dude saving 'his people' (I assume the humans but the gameplay is pretty mediocre so I'm not finishing the game to find out) and there's like some goofy ghost king and like.. he's just no longer some badass solving the situation the only way he knows how. I miss that.
- The polish on the presentation is a lot weaker. Things like acquiring a shotgun by ripping it out of a dead dudes arms has been replaced by walking into a floating glowing gun.
- Some of the enemies like the imps can blend into the more hellish landscapes making them pretty hard to see.
- Combat feels like a mess sometimes. Lot of involuntary switching of weapons due to ammo issues, needing to find something to chainsaw, just so many enemy blasts caking the screen all the time.. you're no longer moving to out maneuver the enemy like in D16, but rather just cause 30 blasts are landing at your feet at all times.

All that said, from other reviews it sounds like the ammo may get better later, you can skip the goofy story elements, the fights weren't unfair despite the bullet hell aspect, and the polish is just a thing I personally liked about D16 so maybe it's for you. I personally can't recommend it to anyone, just way too much I hate.

Quick summary:

The game I played was a $10 1 or 2 man team making their personal vision. I felt like it would potentially be a good game if developed by a studio and provided resources. Then I remembered I paid $45 for it and decided I needed to trash it in a review.



The Long Version:

The game is 45 dollars. I had like 9 hours logged when I finished it and that's with probably around 2 hours of idle time. 45 dollars for a 7 hour game of this low quality is insane.

Gameplay:
- It's basically a walking sim that has an extra mechanic thrown into a couple parts. (Hide from orderlies while you collect things. Walk away from the one monster the devs programmed. Uh.. at one point there are zombies with a single attack animation and you can click on them to shoot.)
- You are in a confined space. Need to examine certain things. Move to the next confined space to do the same thing. There is about 4 puzzles in the game but they're incredibly easy so they don't feel like they're there to be a challenge but rather to mix things up.
- You can speak with people when the confined space dictates that's the interaction you need to make at this time. There's a dialogue wheel that let's you choose what to say to people and sometimes your "destiny is altered" (I think implying that your choices affect the game later.)
- There are clues that you gather, and info on characters but like.. you never use any of it so I'm not really sure why that part of the journal is there. (Aside from one part where there's a paper that tells you how to survive the specific instance. Then it's filed under clues but.. you just read it so I guess unless you forgot..)
- You have skills you invest character points into. (This is the first red flag of the game). These skills are half filled out when you start the game. I don't know why the default position isn't just level 1 and you're able to do the things you can do. But they start at level 2 for some reason. I think you can get through the game nearly as easily without ever opening the screen at all, though.


World:
- I feel like the characters don't have real personalities. I can't identify with any and a lot of them don't behave the same way twice. They're kinda inconsistent. I don't know how there's supposed to be any sort of impact with these characters when you can't relate to them or read them as "Oh, you're the friend that does x y and holds opinion z. Oh, you're the douche that does x y and feels z way about the events."
- The dialogue is awful. It has no life and it rarely matches what I think these characters personalities are supposed to be. The lines jump from being something that would come from someone who's been having a friendly conversation for the last 2-3 minutes to somethign that'd come from someone you were argueing with for the last hour then back again. Sometimes your responses to each other don't even feel like they fit. I found myself wondering "Did I address what this person said, or am I just talking at him without caring what he/she says?" It feels like a dude was like "Crap! The game needs dialogue!" and wrote the game's dialogue in one late night binge. It's pretty bad.
- The physical world presented isn't large at all. The outside kinda nails the look for this type fo story I think and when I hit it the first time I was excited about the game. I could feel the hopelessness and dread. But it amounts to basically a hallway, and the rest you see is inside a cave, tiny hospital, or a house.
- I went out of my way to choose the nicer options with this one character because I was like "Man, we gonna be bros." Then when you see him the next morning for no reason whatsoever no matter what I choose my dude was a giant douche to him.

Quality:
- The voice acting was hilarious to listen to.
- The animations were terrible. Randomly, I thought they did a good job on the main characters hyper stressed face. I think they nailed that emotion. No one else shows any at all, though. Looks like the devs didn't even work on them.
- The cutscenes are sometimes awkward. Some of those quick cuts where it's not like it's hard to tell what happened but felt more like they didn't want to animate a lot of it happening.

Story:
- The story was interesting in that if you asked me to summarize the plot, I would tell you a summary that sounds very interesting to me.
- The story wasn't told well, however. There are a lot of on goings that I'm not really sure where they came from. It felt more important that weird things were happening to the character than that those weird things would somehow be relatable to the plot.

Spoiler section complaining about the end:

- My destiny being altered ended up not really altering my destiny at all. It always came down to three choices.
- Those three choices led to dumb endings where a thing quickly happens (Like 7 second video) then the credits roll. I'm like... What??
- I couldn't help but laugh at the whole climax. Why do I care about any of this? You haven't built my character up at all and now suddenly he's fighitng brainwashing or something.. but what do I care if he fails? Where are the characters I intentionally saved??? What happened to them? Why is that not addressed?

Game's pretty neat. Good atmosphere. Creepy enemies, when you see 'em.

I'm gonna throw a quick description of the gameplay (no details on story) below in spoiler text (in case some want to go in blind).


The game is a first person survival horror in which you walk or "run" (very...very slowly...) around a house, picking up objects and examining them. I think "Gone Home" is a good comparison to get an idea of how you control your character and interact with your environment.

The primary mechanic is a sanity meter indicated by how visible a brain is in the lower left of your screen. The idea is you go too insane, the enemy will spawn and chase you down. So keep yourself sane while trying to progress.

Sanity is negatively impacted by:
- Being in darkness.
- Witnessing paranormal events.

Sanity is positively impacted by:
- Being in light.
- Successfully escaping an enemy that spawned.
- Taking pills from bottles found around the house.

Negatives of Sanity:
- More paranormal events start occurring at a higher rate of volume (causing you to go more insane, creating this more rapidly progressing downward plunge the lower you allow your sanity to go.
- Enemy spawns when it gets to low and chases you. (Not always easy to escape and can sometimes spawn right next to you.)

Threats:
- If you allow an enemy to get too close, you will instantly die.

Progression:

You progress by going to the correct location in the house, or finding a key that opens a new area of the house. When you hit the correct area, scripted events begin happening. Normally a 'story segment' is triggered in which the sanity mechanic is temporarily removed (and the ability to save, forcing you to rely on the games autosaves during these segments.)

Positives:
+ Atmosphere is great.
+ The Enemies are creepy looking.
+ It wasn't nearly as jumpscary as I thought it would be. Relied a lot more on atmosphere. (Though there is a jumpscare or two.)
+ Trying to figure out what you were supposed to do never felt tedious. Maybe I got lucky, but as long as I checked out every room I was able to find out what was needed most the time.

Negatives:
Early access so it's rough to give it's negatives too much weight. Hope devs read though and make adjustments to some of the below (or tell me I'm wrong about w/e I'm wrong about)

- The inventory system can be a bit clunky. Sometimes when the quick slots aren't up, left clicking is still storing/taking items out anyway. (It seems consistently fine as long as I wait like, 10 seconds and a few steps before trying to use what's in my hand.)
- Items you're holding can get stuck on the environment, and when holding two items and switching hands they can sometimes get stuck on each other. (My camera was pinned facing left by my lighter so I couldn't flash in front of me, for example.) Note: It's super easy to fix by spamming swap a couple more times, though. So not a big deal just a lil' clunky.
- You gotta be closer to some light sources than others to receive the benefit of light. (The 1st floor TV vs the Basement TV, for example. The basement mannequin light vs the basement clock light, for another.)
- Sometimes hard to tell what's going to give you the benefit of light. My character didn't get the benefit of light from the fridge, for example. Didn't get the benefit of light from the child's closet light, for another. Also the candles in the progression room didn't seem to give me the benefit of light a couple times, but then did another so I dunno if they do or not.
- I noticed the basement TV was a valid light source for most the game but upon completing the second to last story segment suddenly it wouldn't keep me sane. (Tried standing next to it with very little sanity loss but my dude just descended into madness.)
- I swear it told me that lighters would maintain my sanity level, yet I descended into madness carrying a lit one into the dark and the game yelled at me about standing in the dark for extended periods of time.

I'm spoilering these final negatives out even though I'm gonna keep the story out of it because they discuss mechanics and there's varying levels of sensitivity on Steam.


- I didn't like that I found all these lightbulbs, then 20% of the way into the game the lightbulb mechanic was completely removed. (I wonder if it's intended to come back in the full game)
- I noticed the sanity mechanic was also unimportant after the second to last story segment. The enemy would spawn at seemingly random. No sanity issue, spawn and start coming for me and I just run like normal. High sanity loss would also felt like it didn't necessarily contribute to it spawning.

Final negatives provides specifics on what I perceived to be mechanics based on things I found in the game.

- Maybe I just completely misunderstood and am totally wrong (sorry if that's the case), but I thought the second enemy was supposed to be camera flashable. So about 1 or 2 times I flashed it a couple times and it disappeared but maybe it was just timing out faster? Because then two other times it chased me around for like 7 minutes while I was flashing it.
- Didn't really know what would trigger progression at some points. Was a problem during the end of the I think third story segment (super long one where a new enemy was introduced). I think the best example came after the second to last story segment, I went to the room that ended up having the final segment but nothing triggered. I quicksaved in there, not knowing I was in the correct room as I felt nothing indicated that. Ran around, died a couple times started at my quicksave 3 times. 3rd time starting at the quicksave the final story segment was instantly triggered, as if I had been in the correct place all along. I know that's super vague but hopefully devs know what I mean :/


Overall I really enjoyed it. The game draws from some pretty successful horror titles and I actually found myself pretty interested in what was going on.