Release Date: TBD
Systems: Windows
Publisher: oxblud
Developer: Tim Oxton
Time Spent: 38 Minutes
I don't know how best to describe SILKBULB TEST. A horror testing simulator maybe? There is a multiple-choice test and a couple of times when the game gives you a score. You can move your head to look around the room but you cannot physically move, either because that's not part of the game and test, or because your character is restrained except for their hands.
From what I could tell, SILKBULB TEST exists to make you feel uncomfortable while telling some kind of story. Like reading SCP entries in the dark at 3 AM while sitting in your underwear in the kitchen surrounded by half-finished glasses of apple juice, one of which contains three of your teeth. If this were a VR game, I would likely shit myself with a 53% chance of having a heart attack within the first 7 minutes.
SILKBULB TEST puts you in the role of a person sitting at a table with two buttons marked A and B in front of them and you answer questions by pressing either of the buttons in response to the slides that are projected on the screen in front of you. The screen and buttons are positioned in a way that you cannot see and/or press the buttons while looking at the screen, which has to be a deliberate mechanic choice because there are times when there are changes to the environment while you are either looking at the screen or looking down at the buttons. There is even a slide that says "Don't look down" and your response is with either of the buttons to progress the slides.
There is then a series of slides that ask you to agree or disagree with a statement, such as, "This is an image of a door," "This is an image of a person," or "This is a stranger." You then have five seconds to press one of the corresponding buttons. I found this difficult the two times I played the game, once on the Steam Deck and thinking that I might have better luck with a mouse instead of the Steam Deck's trackpad. On the Steam Deck, I never felt that I could be as quick and as precise as I wanted to be, either overshooting the button or accidentally hitting the wrong one. My laptop was something else as I was only able to run the game on low graphical settings and still maxed out at 8 fps, so moving the cursor was the very definition of sluggish. Five seconds is a very short time to read a question, have your brain register the image, then physically move the camera down to click the correct button, let alone a sequence of buttons, then look up in time to see the next slide/question before you again hear the ticking of the clock.
There are several scripted elements that I experienced that was very unnerving, although by the end, before my test ended, the tension and fear that I had felt were replaced by frustration. In the end, I was asked to press a combination such as "A B A A B B B" within a certain amount of time or something creepy would happen; I'll leave that out. You then had to enter another combination while looking down but if you didn't, something creepy would happen to completion and you would have to start this portion of the test all over again. After the third time failing because of hitting the wrong combination of A/B, I was no longer afraid, just annoyed because it didn't feel like failing was an intentional part of the mechanic. There might have been one more attempt at pressing the buttons in the correct sequence and then I essentially got a game over. I was both relieved because I could no longer be frightened and because I wouldn't have to sit through a sequence that felt impossible and frustrating.
The Steam page for SILKBULB TEST says that it is a cooperative game although the single-player demo gives no hint as to how. The page does specify that the "...demo should be considered an introduction and early tutorial to the world and is not representative of the gameplay for the full game." There is also mention of a mechanic called a customizable "Safe-T Face" that alerts you to things that are just beyond your sight and look absolutely terrifying. Developer Tim Oxton does have another game available titled Future Racer 2000 that looks to be in a similar vein although a completely different delivery device. I greatly appreciate too that the page says that Future Racer 2000 is only a 30-40 minute experience, so I wouldn't be surprised if SILKBULB TEST has a similar length and price, although maybe increased a bit on both counts due to inflation. Or something.
I am very much intrigued by what the final SILKBULB TEST will look and play like, if only because I want to know how this demo is incorporated into the story and the lore and just what the blazes are going on and why.
~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
With A Lesson Fully Dreadful
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