henke on 11/6/2012 at 17:09
Ok I'm betting a few others here have started playing this as well since getting it in the bundle and might wanna share their thoughts.
I'm 30 days in, just made it past the part just after the bus, liking it so far. Amazed at how unnerving it is for such a low-fi game. The part near the beginning when you have to go through the long pitch black tunnel was genuinely frightening. I was inching along, worried that at any moment something unpleasant was going to jump out and get me. Lovely music as well, and the game does a great job at giving you incentives to keep on playing. There's always a short term goal to accomplish, like defeating a certain monster, or gaining access to a certain room, as well as more long term goals, like getting your kitchen equipment set up and finding a can-opener* so you can make food. The way you keep scavenging and upgrading the gear in your appartment makes it feel a bit like a post-apocalyptic Sims-game.
I don't like how the game randomly slips you more ammo and food when you're running low though. There were parts early on when I was just wandering around the building, knowing that the only way to make progress now would be to kill some monsters, which I couldn't do because I didn't have any ammo. So all I could do was bide my time until some ammo magically popped up in my inventory. That makes it feel more like a game of luck than skill. Once you get out onto the streets the game feels better balanced though. Ammo and resources are still scarce but there's always enough that you'll just barely scrape by.
* seriously where the hell is that thing? I have like a billion cans of food in my inventory now but no way to open them! Did all the can-openers in the world perish in the apocalypse?
henke on 11/6/2012 at 19:50
aaaaaaand it's over. And I never found the can-opener. Nor did I get the washingmachine going, or find a way to use the rainwater for making coffee. Nor did I figure out who the blue girl was. In short, WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT SHIT!?
This game was way too short. Or maybe it wasn't, I guess 4 hours would've been long enough if only it was paced in such a way as to make you see that the end was coming, but instead it just feels like act 3 of this story is missing and the game ends abruptly. Would've been real nice if the game actually answered any of the questions it poses, but instead it's all LOST-esque mystery-buildup with no payoff.
Jesus. I don't know how to feel about this, I mean I enjoyed the game while I was playing it but when it comes to the end I can't help but feel cheated. What a bunch of vague bullshit.
demagogue on 12/6/2012 at 05:43
Sounds like the strategy of tacking on mysterious unresolved things when you have a limited budget & schedule to make your game & world seem bigger than it is or you can make it ... then backfiring when it only re-focuses attention on how short it is.
Dresden on 12/6/2012 at 06:09
I thought it was cool until about half way through when my interest disappeared for some reason. It did make me want to play the Silent Hill games though. I can see the appeal in them now.
