[Disclaimer: I received a review key for The Voidness - LIDAR Survival Horror Game through Keymailer, a third-party website/company that connects publishers and developers with content creators. The game was given without promise or expectation of a positive review, only that the game be played and content be created through the playing of the game and the experience. Unless otherwise noted, all content in the following article is from my own playthrough of this game.]
Well, apologies to Steelkrill Studio for not being able to finish their game. I tried, but I know from how I feel after only playing these 72 minutes that this is not the kind of game that I would be able to finish and say that I ultimately enjoyed. I like the concept, but there are a couple of mechanics that hamper some of the current, as well as potential future enjoyment. We have a playlist up on YouTube of my shortened time playing the game which we'll get into below.
The gist of the game is that you play a former astronomer who wakes up in an empty space station on a newly discovered planet and is unable to locate her fellow crew members. An anomalous space referred to as The Void on the planet is the likely culprit. In an environment where all light ceases to exist, you set out to find any remaining crew members and contain The Void. That on its own is a great premise that I could get behind. But then we have to get down to the nitty gritty and ultimately why I had to pass on this game after only 72 minutes.
First off, the controls. You're not able to invert the y-axis, and as I was playing this on my laptop, I wasn't able to make use of the Steam Deck's wonderfully robust control customization options. I first thought that I could play through the game without inverted y-axis controls, but once I entered the Void and had to navigate by LIDAR, it became more difficult to navigate and easier to become disoriented. Secondly, there is a whistle mechanic, which makes sense at the beginning of the game, but as you're in the Void and there are multiple times where you're prompted to be as quiet as possible, having a whistle mechanic doesn't make a lot of sense. What's even worse is that whistling is mapped to the space bar. Jump is also mapped to the space bar, but you can't detangle whistling and jumping, so any time you want to jump, you have to whistle first and then quickly press the spacebar again to initiate a jump. I did try remapping the Jump to X, but pressing X still made my character whistle and then jump.
Last is the saving mechanic. I probably should have picked up on this, as Steelkrill seems to use the same saving mechanic in another game of theirs I played, Baby Blues: Nightmare Horror Game, but you're only able to save at a save location once. I get the desire to make saving something to cherish and feel relieved about, and it's easier to come to terms with when you're in a world of darkness lit only temporarily by your LIDAR device. I feel it also doesn't make any sense story-wise, either. When you find a computer terminal, you're able to save, but only once. Maybe if I had saved back in the station and the computer either froze or fried, it would make sense that you can't use it again, but in the Void, there was no such indication that anything bad happened to this terminal, being able to save only once, especially this early in the stage after the game automatically saves, just feels like bad placement. Having the save terminal at the end of the flooded hallway before you have to double back would make more sense.
After dying twice (yes, I know, only twice), I knew that this was going to play a bigger part in my enjoyment of the game, especially once the game introduced the hunting enemy mechanic that I actually died to my second time playing. I liked the story, I liked the general aesthetic, and I liked the LIDAR mechanic, but the combination of the controls and the save mechanic was where I felt like I couldn't continue anymore. I wanted to enjoy The Voidness - LIDAR Survival Horror Game, but in the end, I couldn't figure out how best to hold on to it.
[Disclaimer: I received a review key for Baby Blues Nightmares - Toddler Horror Game through Keymailer, a third-party website/company that connects publishers and developers with content creators. The game was given without promise or expectation of a positive review, only that the game be played and content be created through the playing of the game and the experience. Unless otherwise noted, all content in the following article is from my own playthrough of this game.]
I had moderately high hopes for Baby Blues Nightmares - Toddler Horror Game even though the first-person toddler perspective survival-horror genre only has a few games to this niche sub-genre, one of which I first played in Among the Sleep after it was released following its successful Kickstarter back in 2014. In "Among the Sleep," you play as a toddler in onesie pajamas as they navigate a somewhat disturbing fantastic setting of real-world locations melded with fantastic story-book-like settings, all the while avoiding gigantic horrors that turn out to be an alcoholic parent. You also have a smarmy-cabby-like-talking teddy bear as a companion. In Baby Blues Nightmares, while you are another onesie-clad toddler, you now find yourself in the real-world location of your house and Red Belly's Funhouse & Childcare facility where you're tasked with locating your dolls to help you fight off and defend yourself from the titular character of Red Belly.
Since I played on the Steam Deck, I didn't have to do much to get the game to play the way I wanted it to. I didn't need to use any compatibility settings and the game ran at a consistent 30 fps with a combination of Ultra/High/Medium graphical settings. I did have to map a few keyboard buttons to the L4 and R4 back buttons like Left-Ctrl to crouch and Q to pick up and interact with certain items in the game. In Chapter 3 after acquiring the map and tinkering with the not-always-intuitive control UI, I tried creating a shortcut for the map to the 1 key (the game lets you create shortcuts for up to four items using the 1,2,3,4 key), but I couldn't get the game to pull up the map for me when I pressed the button on the Steam Deck. By default, the 1 key is mapped to the Up button on the left touchpad, but since that didn't seem to work, I created another mapping for the Up on the directional pad, but that didn't work either. Another gripe I had to deal with was opening drawers to use as steps to get on top of dressers and the like. Like a good Amnesia game, you had to click and hold on the drawer then manually slide the drawer out. The way that the controls on the Steam Deck were set up, was that I to either use the Claw Grip to press the B button with my index finger and swipe the right touchpad (or the right joystick, but I never did this), or use my right thumb on the B button and swipe with my left hand. Very inconvenient all around, but thankfully I was never forced into this kind of maneuver while being chased.
Another complaint rests with the saving mechanic and its implementation. In the opening stage, from what I could tell, there were no save spots and I didn't notice any autosaving happening. Only after reaching Chapter 2 are save spots introduced, which feels rather late considering the first chapter really felt like an otherwise well-constructed tutorial chapter. Don't get me wrong though, I love that a separate nap room is a brilliant use the environment and maintaining a sense of continuity for the player playing as a onesie-clad toddler. However, later in Chapter 3, I discovered, I think, that you're able to save only once per room, with no indication from the game that this is a mechanic. In my Chapter 3 Part 2 video, at about 24:30, I figured I would unload the items I had collected and then save and quit, but I couldn't without the game telling me why, which is why I assume save/nap rooms are like one-time-only consumables. I might've chalked it up to a glitch, but it happened again in my Chapter 3 Part 2 video (x:xx.xx). I'm not against a survival horror game having limited saves (a la the original Resident Evil), but that information needs to be relayed to the player.
There were several other mechanics that I ended up either not using, or didn't see the point of, mainly the tricycle. In Chapters 1 and 3, a tricycle with a trailer to load with items is available. In Chapter 1, you only ride the tricycle out of the garage and around a corner before you either stop at the sight of your mom being creepy, or you just continue another couple of yards before that goopy mass bursts through the hedges and ends your ride. I never felt that this was enough of a tutorial or plants the incentive with the player that the tricycle was an integral part of the game to warrant locating it in Chapter 3 as a necessary survival mechanic, especially since you had to locate the spare wheel first. For me, by the time I really understood the map and where I was in it at most times, I felt confident in being able to navigate around the facility while being able to avoid Red Belly. I also felt that I had better mobility on foot if I needed to make a quick turn, or if I needed to crawl into a duct or a locker to avoid Red Belly, assuming that the time required to dismount from the tricycle or even make an about-face would hamper me from being able to make a faster escape. So even though I found the spare wheel, spray paint, bike bell, and teddy bear, I felt no need to actually find the tricycle. And relating to running away from Red Belly, I felt that the rate that your stamina replenished outweighed the amount of time it would take to open up the menu to drink a bottle of milk in time to continue running away, so I never ended up using milk to replenish my stamina; unless I completely misunderstood what Fresh Milk was supposed to do.
I have mixed feelings about the in-game map that you find, since it's not readily provided and easily accessible. when I first came upon the map, I nearly missed it because it was darkened by the blood/goop on the ground and I only saw it because of the white hand that appeared over it. Upon seeing the size of the facility, I was pretty overwhelmed especially this is a map in a video game operating in a very non-video game manner. There is no compass, there is no "you are here" on the map, and a lot of what is depicted on the map could be categorized as subjective to what is actually in the room. But that does make a certain kind of sense. The map is hand drawn, presumably by Aiden or someone a little older, so it's not going to be as accurate and as easy to follow as something you might find in "The Elder Scrolls Online" or "Assassin's Creed: Origins." By the end of the game, I was finding that I wasn't looking at the map as long to figure out where I was, but to figure out how to get to where I wanted to go as I already knew my location, but while I felt more comfortable navigating this massive space, I still wasn't overly thrilled with the color scheme of the X's denoting the dolls, or something important, or a point of interest as under certain lights, they all kind of looked the same.
Let's briefly review the game's ending, as there is some potentially heavy and triggering material here.
After collecting all five of Aiden's lost dolls, he is all of a sudden on a narrow path leading up towards the unknown, flanked by scenes from his recent memory. Most of these scenes could be considered memories, except that there are a few that are before Aiden's birth, but I understand the desire and need for an exposition dump here at the end of the game. You pass scenes of spousal abuse that were pretty difficult to hear since the scenes looked more like animatronic displays with simple movements. But still hearing the repeated slaps/punches was difficult to listen to. It is then revealed that Aiden's father murdered his mother, likely at the beginning of the game during Chapter 1. I'm not quite sure how to feel about the semi-rosy ending about Aiden ending up in foster care while having experienced all of this trauma, before, during, and after the actual gameplay. Was then Aiden's running around Red Belly's Funhouse & Child Care facility supposed to have only occurred in his mind, or did Aiden's father take him there and then somehow lose track of him? I assume that's who Red Belly was in the game, a visage that Aiden placed over his Dad when he was in a violent and abusive rage. And then the stinger at the end of the game actually made me really sad, seeing Red Belly's hand rise up from the base of the crib while knowing that this is likely a figment of Aiden's imagination, but that he is currently and will likely relive this trauma while in the foster care system for years and likely decades to come. I don't know if I can or want to further analyze Aiden's living situation and past/present trauma because I'm not set up for that kind of analysis; also reading a book where physical child abuse happened against a child by a once-loving parent coupled with this game is hitting particularly hard right now.
It's a difficult topic. While I don't mind using video games as an avenue to talk about and discuss trauma, I don't know if "Baby Blues Nightmares" is the best game to be that vanguard. But honestly, who am I to tell someone that what doesn't sit well with me is the wrong approach, especially if the game was created as a coping mechanism? But that's just how I feel.
Despite all of that, there was quite a bit that I actually enjoyed. I still think that having a survival horror game from a child's perspective is still novel when handled well. Having to think about how you're going to unlock and open a door when you can't even reach the door knob is a neat idea. I didn't mind the immersion-breaking mechanic of a toddler throwing a wooden truck hard enough to break a sheet of glass and then crawling up and over the shards of glass without taking any damage, that just would've been annoying despite it only happening a handful of times. There were a handful of well-placed jump scares that weren't dependent on the player being a child that I found genuinely frightening. Moments that involved stationary dolls like clowns in Chapter 1 and the wooden puppet in Chapter 2 I thought were well executed. Each jump scare involving Red Belly I thought was well timed and helped to maintain the physical weight and terror of this creature as he/it never felt that it was some flitty entity moving about the facility. There were a couple jump scares related to finding Aiden's coveted dolls but they didn't always happen after acquiring each doll, which made the actual scare that much more impactful. I also liked the auto-blinking mechanic as it kept me on edge, not knowing if something was going to appear between blinks.
You know, despite there being significantly more criticism that I had to say about Baby Blues Nightmares - Toddler Horror Game, I did enjoy it for the most part, and despite all of the negative things I had to say about it. While there were some mechanics that I enjoyed, others didn't feel well implemented or even necessary, but that didn't take away from the moments I was enjoying the game itself. I never felt that the game was cheap in its jump scares, and being able to hide from Red Belly successfully without getting caught was always satisfying; in that the two times I was caught felt fair, that I had messed up and not that the game broke its own rules. Oddly enough, being lost with the map was probably the lowest point in the game for me, but at the same time, figuring out the map and getting to where I needed to go was the high point.
If you'd like to watch one or all of my playthrough videos, they're up on YouTube here; although I do apologize for the videos being darker than they were on the Steam Deck, I'm still working on that.
I am somewhat loathe to say that I've now played P.T. because I haven't, which is kind of the whole point of our Emulator Hour articles. That we're publically saying that we've played an emulated game or at the very least, played a game on an emulator for any number of reasons. The reason for playing an adapted and rebuilt version of P.T. the way that I have is because the original P.T. was first made available on August 12, 2014, and was pulled from the PlayStation online store after a falling out between Hideo Kojima and Konami was made permanently unavailable as of May 2015. But hooooooly shit did it make an impression. I did not have a PlayStation 4 at the time that P.T. was available and I'm sure as hell not going to fork over $750 for a 10-year-old console that supposedly has the playable teaser installed on it.
For several years I'd searched for an emulated version of P.T., butmost of my searches led me to Unreal PT, but only in name as most of the links I came across were more than six months old and dead. Then I read an article (I sadly can't find the article or the article that I had written about the article) going over what they (who're they?) felt were the best horror games of all time that everyone should play, and naturally P.T. was on that list, which irked me a bit because of the uber-scarcity of the original game files. That'd be like saying that The Day the Clown Cried is the best movie of all time that everyone should see before they die. But find a downloadable version of Unreal P.T. I did, and play it I did. Kind of.
Very quickly, before I get into actually talking about the game, I want to preface that I know that there are two semi-available emulated ports of P.T. There's Unreal PT that I have played, and the 'closer to the source material' P.T. Emulation 1.4 which is locked behind a Patreon paywall. Between those two available ports, Unreal P.T. has the greatest number of differences such as missing animations, missing assets, and is potentially unbeatable. So with all of that in mind, let's get to Unreal P.T.
Attempt #1
This was technically my second attempt playing Unreal PT, but that first time was mainly to see if the game would run on my laptop, and let me tell you, in this case, 18 frames per second was about what I was expecting. What my point is in sharing this clip, is that I went into this without having looked anything up, although I did know, possibly through common societal knowledge that the game had something to do with a hallway and a creepy-ass woman. I also read a while ago that the creepy woman is supposedly behind you the entire time from a game-dev standpoint and so I kept thinking that she was going to show up, which is why I kept turning around in my Attempt #2 and #3 videos, expecting her to be at the end of the hallway.
Despite not knowing how to open the door on the second loop, what threw me the most was that the door-opening mechanic was just, "walk into door and it will either open or it won't." Maybe I'm just too used to modern first-person survival-horror walking sims where you have to click on the door to open it or press a button to trigger a door-opening action, but this just felt like I was doing something wrong. That and not knowing what I was supposed to be looking for. Like a picture on the ground, but we'll get to that in Attempt #2. I feel like at the 9:40 mark you can feel me really getting frustrated.
Attempt #2
Before jumping into the game this time, I did look up a walkthrough, which was where I found out about the picture on the ground in the second loop (or is it the first loop?). However, I misremembered what I read because I thought that this had something to do with the series of pictures you collected during one of the later loops. But upon zooming in (thanks to the RMB cue) this opened up the door to allow me to proceed through to the next loop.
During whatever-loop-that-is at the 07:14 mark, I noticed my frames per second dropped from 15-18 down to 9. Normally this would likely mean that the game would be unplayable, but possibly because I was already used to a sub-20 fps, this didn't bother me too much. I could still play and feel that the game wasn't absolutely broken. It's not running great, but at least it's running. And then I accidentally shortcutted one of the more iconic shots in the entire game, when you round the corner and see the woman standing at the end of the hallway, all because I rounded the corner too quickly and didn't stop soon enough. But maybe that makes the event creepier since you only see her for a split second before the lights go out? Maybe?
Just a few additional notes on Attempt #2. Nope, do not like that bathroom one bit. At the 10:40 mark, I paused the game because I was playing it at work on my lunch break, and at the time, there was a medication delivery that I had to handle, so I ended up cutting out about four minutes of pause screen. That new modified radio broadcast in the second to last loop was damn creepy, as in goosebumps and all when the voice started repeating the numbers and then again during the last loop when the voice says, "Look behind you. I said, look behind you." And that jump scare at 14:55 legitimately got me. Then I decided that I should turn the lights back on in my office and go back to work.
Attempt #3
This one was the doozy. I reread a walkthrough before playing, and referenced a couple during the repeating red hallway sequence to find the hole in the wall, and once your flashlight starts to change colors each loop. I think this might be as far as you can get in Unreal PT based on some of what I've read about this port's limitations, and I'm kinda okay with that. The solution feels like it's on the level of Lucasfilm Games' point-and-click level of obscurity what with the number of steps into the hallway, and even having to speak a certain phrase or word for the front door to finally unlock; although I also read that that solution doesn't exist in either Unreal PT or PT Emulation 1.4, so there's that too.
The attempt had a lot of good moments in it, from seeing words appear on walls on subsequent loops, to even the amount of frustration of the red looping hallways and actually thinking that the foyer was some level of relief because it was something different. The white screen of death was nice and in a way felt akin to the blue screen of death in Eternal Darkness. Also somewhat being able to piece together the story of what I thought was going on was genuinely unsettling but still a fun realization; although I obviously don't know everything because I didn't see what happened immediately before the player is graced with Norman Reedus' beautifully grossly mug. I'm also not sure what to make of the bloody talking bag in the garage after respawning the post-white screen.
I don't think that I can come away saying that I've now played P.T. for all of the reasons I mentioned way up there at the top, but I can say that I've played through the majority of Unreal PT, which might be all that will ever be available until Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro are able to wrestle their vision away from Konami's copyright lawyers. Who knows. Either way, this was a fun emulated port of a delisted playable teaser for a game that was canceled nine years ago because someone's ego was purportedly bruised.
[Disclaimer: I received a review key for Light - Die to Surive through Keymailer, a third-party website/company that connects publishers and developers with content creators. The game was given without promise or expectation of a positive review, only that the game be played and content be created through the playing of the game and the experience. Unless otherwise noted, all content in the following article is from my own playthrough of this game.]
Light - Die to Survive Systems: Windows, Linux Release Date: July 31, 2024 Publisher: NoteBuddy, Inc. Developer: NoteBuddy, Inc. Time Spent: 73 Minutes
Now that we've covered the basics and generalities in Light - Die to Survive back in Monday's article, I will go over three of my four attempts at playing and trying to pass the first chapter. I technically have all four of the videos I recorded all of the playing I did in Light, but for some unknown reason, the second video ends up corrupted every time I try to export it from Steam on the Steam Deck. I can watch the video on the Steam Deck, so I know it's a thing, but every time I try to export that one file, it saves as 1.4KB, so I'm not sure what's going on in the exporting process for this one file because all of the other video files come up as their actual video. Not that there was anything overly revolutionary in that second video other than showing some progression in figuring out a couple of the solutions in what you're supposed to do for certain phenomena as you walk/run down the long road.
Playthrough #1: The First
I genuinely like the slightly messiness in this video. It's not flashy or showy or really professional-looking. It's just me starting up the game, technically for the second time but the first time was only for two minutes and to get screenshots of the title screen. It shows the process of trying to figure out how to best get the game to run well enough to be playable and presentable on a system that the game was both not designed or optimized for and one that doesn't have a large enough player base to help guide new players.
So the medium settings were somewhat playable, but I honestly didn't feel that there was a significant difference on the Steam Deck between the Low and Medium settings, so I just left them on low for the slightly better frame rate; I'd rather have a stable 30, especially for YouTube videos.
As you can tell from this first video, I figured out how to make it past the mannequin, but was flummoxed by the phone which will be covered below. But, the main purpose was to just start up the game and see how best to run it on the Steam Deck.
Playthrough #3: The Second
I'm a bit miffed by the fact that I seem to be unable to export my second video although there wasn't a lot of progression so maybe that's not a bad thing? I'm just annoyed mainly from a completionist view in that there's a gap in my experience playing the game that I can't share, even if that experience wasn't productive.
Instead of doing a long-winded commentary, I'm going to bullet point the highlights from the video without hyperlinking any of the timestamps because I cannot afford a personal assistant to do it for me. And there was a lot of progression that happened in this video.
01:42 - First viewing of the dumpster creature.
01:48 - Dead
02:55 - Thought I could try to sneak by, even with the flashlight lit.
02:55 - Dead
03:41 - I thought this time I would try approaching the dumpster but with the flashlight off.
03:46 - Dead
04:30 - The first time I saw a mannequin up on the hill and thought I should treat it like the first mannequin and keep it illuminated and hope that it would disappear.
04:37 - Success!!
04:55 - I thought this time I would completely ignore the dumpster with the light off.
05:06 - Now there's a portapotty and thought I should stop to have a look around.
05:44 - Blinking Road Closed Sign
06:13 - Dead
07:35 - I thought I would investigate the portapotty this time around.
07:37 - Dead
09:31 - First time noticing the object in the road. I didn't recognize it as a hand at first. After the screen glitch, I looked around for a mannequin and when I didn't see one, I thought it was safe to proceed.
10:23 - Dead
11:26 - I stopped here at the portapotty because of where I died last time. I thought this was similar to the phone mannequin, that I needed to solve a puzzle to not die in the next area.
12:26 - First spotting of the ditch mannequin.
12:34 - Dead
I think I died here because I went too far down the "Road Closed" dirt road.
14:19 - I got the mannequin to disappear using the same, "shine the light on it and walk away from it" technique.
14:29 - First sighting of the water tower
14:34 - A figure, similar to the dumpster creature, I briefly spotted hanging from the water tower but it disappeared too quickly to get a good look. I turned the light off in the belief, this time around, that I should only illuminate things when I specifically needed to and not at all times.
14:50 - Road cone and road sign
15:16 - Dead
16:35 - I have no explanation as to why it took several passes for the mannequin to disappear, but this started happening more and more frequently.
19:02 - Unlit lamp post
19:05 - Dead
Playthrough #4: The Third
I'm going to keep a similar format to the previous video just to maintain some level of consistency.
02:26 - I walk towards the ditch thinking that the mannequin will be there.
02:38 - The mannequin is located in a very different location, which I appreciate, but again, I wish that the game did this after every time you respawn to make each run/attempt slightly more interesting.
03:02 - Still a bit confused by the water tank at this point.
03:25 - At the road cone and sign, I actually take the sign into account and determine that you're supposed to walk around the cone (counterclockwise, yes?) before continuing.
03:36 - There's the sound of a mannequin appearing/disappearing I think, but I couldn't find anything. The sound does crop up again in the same general area, but I never did figure out what it's associated with.
03:49 - An unlit lamp post. I probably should have noticed that it being off was likely a hint as to what to do with my flashlight.
04:12 - The bus stop!
04:17 - A red arrow on the back right of the bus stop.
04:19 - Screen glitch
04:21 - Almost simultaneously after the glitch, there's an animal/creature sound along with a similar dust-up of animation on the right side of the road quickly followed by one on the left side of the road.
04:49 - Dead
06:43 - I thought that maybe with the mannequin now on the hillside, that maybe I was supposed to try something different, even if it meant going past the Road Closed sign.
06:45 - Dead
07:30 - Don't know why the mannequin didn't disappear here.
08:46 - I thought I kept the light on the hillside mannequin for as long as necessary since it had never disappeared before.
08:47 - Dead
10:09 - Apologies, I was trying out all of the buttons to see if anything happened that hadn't happened before and I accidentally hit the controller/hint screen, which doesn't really give you any hints.
12:33 - Dead
15:10 - I briefly considered maybe I should go down the hillside since the direction of the dust-ups went from right to left and happened around the area that the red arrow was pointing, but the drop down the hill looked too steep to be a thing.
15:38 - I did briefly think about heading up the hillside, but again, that didn't seem right either, mainly because the title of the chapter is "The Long Road."
15:47 - Dead
So this is where my current playthrough of Light - Die to Survive has languished, right after the bus stop with no idea as to what I'm supposed to do with the bus stop itself, the red arrow, the creature sounds or the dust-up on both sides of the road. I only just saw that Kiki Cakes posted an annotated walkthrough, so I'll likely return to the game to see how far I can get with only the occasional handholding and see how much I can figure out on my own. Maybe only to see what the other two environments are like.
But I still stand by my original conclusion from Monday's article, that I like the concept, but any sense of fear or dread drops off dramatically after having to repeat the same sections time and time and time and time again while trying to figure out the next piece of the puzzle.
[Disclaimer: I received a review key for Light - Die to Surive through Keymailer, a third-party website/company that connects publishers and developers with content creators. The game was given without promise or expectation of a positive review, only that the game be played and content be created through the playing of the game and the experience. Unless otherwise noted, all content in the following article is from my own playthrough of this game.]
Light - Die to Survive Systems: Windows, Linux Release Date: July 31, 2024 Publisher: NoteBuddy, Inc. Developer: NoteBuddy, Inc. Time Spent: 73 Minutes
I have mixed feelings about Light - Die to Survive.
On one hand, I like the concept of a game where you have to be mindful of your surroundings and try to find clues and hints on how to proceed. But then that begs the question of what to do if you don't notice a clue or fail to act? You die. And so then you start again, almost immediately without a "You Died" screen or a "Continue?" screen to give the player the maximum amount of drive to continue playing.
The problem comes in when even the developers acknowledge that the game is designed to be bang your head against the wall level-challenging and equally frustrating and have this as part of a weaponless survival horror-styled game, therein lies the issue. As of this writing, I have not completed the first of three chapters, but from what I've gathered from the Steam and Keymailer pages, the mechanics are all pretty similar. You play as a nameless character who finds themself in a location armed only with a flashlight. You will come across abnormalities within your environment, such as a mannequin in the middle of a darkened forest road, and you have to figure out what to do. Do you shine your light on the mannequin? Do you run past it? Do you walk past it with your flashlight off? The game almost immediately lets you know if you didn't do something correctly because if you pass an invisible line after not completing the specific action, you will be killed and then you start over from the beginning of the stage. You then proceed back through the level, remembering all of the actions you took that allowed you to proceed until you solve all of the puzzles/riddles.
On its own, the survival horror portion of the game is pretty effective. It is very unnerving to come across a mannequin off the side of the road. It can be unsettling seeing a phone booth on the side of the road and only hearing it ring after you've passed it. It can be upsetting to find a mannequin's hand in the middle of an abandoned highway. Similar to the games in the backrooms genre, being somewhere that feels vaguely familiar along with something that is very out of place can be a bit unsettling. Something in the back of your brain is telling you that something isn't quite right with this scenario, and that's when you find yourself on edge. It's a great feeling to have when you're playing a survival-horror game because that's why we play survival-horror games. But then mechanics kick in, and you die because you didn't do something correctly. So you start back at the beginning by your truck with its blinking lights and you run up the road. The screen glitches and you see the mannequin in the same place as before. Then you see the phone booth, same as before. Then you run past the dumpster with your flashlight off, same as before. Then you illuminate the portapotty and run past it, but ignore it when you hear the banging, same as before. You repeat the same actions until you reach something new, and the trial and error experiments start all over again.
And that's the flow of Light - Die to Survive and again, one of the inherent issues with this kind of game. The first time you come across anything out of place, it can be scary, but the ninth time you pass the same mannequin, it's no longer scary, it's just a thing you run past to get to the next six anomalies because it's still unclear what you're supposed to do at the bus stop. The further you get in the game, the longer it takes to get back to where you were to figure out what you're supposed to do. And any real sense of fear that might've been present at the beginning has been replaced by annoyance and frustration. And that's not what this game is supposed to be about.
Every time I have played this game, I've only been able to stomach about 15-20 minutes before I have to put it down. I can only take dying nine times in a span of 19 minutes before I start to get weary of the whole endeavor; yes, I died significantly more and at a faster rate playing Celeste, but that's a completely different game. One nice thing though is that the position and location of objects that appear/disappear will sometimes change, but only after you turn the game off and start it back up again. On one playthrough, a mannequin (there're a lot of mannequins in the forest apparently) might appear in a ditch while the next day, the same mannequin might appear on a hillside. If the game were to have that level of permutations after each death, there might be a stronger sense to replay after the third death because you're not running through the same actions time after time after time.
Which ultimately led me to consider how many times I had actually died throughout all of my playthroughs. In one count, among three videos and 73 minutes, I had died about 18 times, which I admit does not seem like a lot, but a lot of it stems from the "I don't know what I'm supposed to do or look for, and I keep dying in the process." So I decided to take my frustration and turn it into a bit of a joke with the video that I put out last week.
On Friday, we'll take a look at my actual attempts at playing Light - Die to Survive and how the game actually handled on the Steam Deck, now that we have a bit of context on the game itself.
[Disclaimer: I received a review key for Umbral through Keymailer, a third-party website/company that connects publishers and developers with content creators. The game was given without promise or expectation of a positive review, only that the game be played and content be created through the playing of the game and the experience. Unless otherwise noted, all content in the following article is from my own playthrough of this game.]
Umbral Systems: Windows Release Date: August 7, 2024 Publisher: MJR Games Studio Developer: Walter O.M. Junior Time Spent: 2 Hours 18 Minutes
Trigger Warning: This article covers several sensitive topics from Umbral that some might find uncomfortable and/or disturbing in nature. Topics such as suicide, self-harm, depression, rape, domestic violence, trauma and torture. If you find any of these topics, related or otherwise, triggering in nature, I would recommend that you skip this article and the related walkthrough videos.
Chapter 5:
I really enjoyed Chapter 5. I liked the village location and I liked all of the other characters/souls you could talk to. The Blacksmith was an interesting character that again, offered a little bit more world/lore building to the world of Umbral, and I also liked that despite being given the statues to place throughout the village, you could not place one at the forge, and help this character. I was a little amused that the animation didn't line up at all with where they were swinging the hammer and that there was no sound associated with what they were hitting.
I also liked that the second closet house, belonging to the soul who yells "Suicide!!" at you, you can't help either. That being said, I think the yeller's AI voice is just another instance where a better voice could have been used. Maybe something raspier and less everyday-man-on-the-street?
When you find the first altar to place the statue, I would have thought that the soul who was crouching next to the woman would have either disappeared or transitioned to a position showing it cowering. That was my interpretation anyway, that it looked aggressive and waiting to pounce on the woman, and that placing the statue at the altar was going to have some effect on it, but I guess not. I also would have liked it had there been an additional line of dialogue from the woman after placing the statue, but again, I guess not.
The rest of the stage placing the statue plays similar to placing the first statue. There's someone outside their house looking forlorn and you can engage with them or not, I don't get the impression that the dialogue changes if you've placed the statue before/after you've talked to them. They do offer additional lore about Umbral, but nothing too groundbreaking. Then you place the statue and move on to the next person and house with an altar.
After talking with the rapist, I did think that there was an altar attached to the Blacksmith's forge, partly because it seemed like houses associated with characters who had unique designs and extended lines of dialogue had their alter, so I wanted to make sure that I didn't miss one before getting too far into the stage. There wasn't.
As for the horned figure in the center of the village, I don't actually know if it is supposed to be the Devil with a capital D, or just an upper-echelon demon playing tricks with Mateus. As for the mourning woman/soul in the graveyard, I realize I probably should have talked to her before activating the statue on the altar as I think that was the last person I needed to talk to, but I didn't realize this was the last alter and that it would trigger a cinema scene and close out the chapter. I mean, I know there was a warning about doing too much to attract attention, but I never felt that I was in any kind of danger of ending the chapter. But I guess that's part of the message from the beings of light, that Mateus could potentially be redeemed on some level through self-sacrifice, by helping other people in the village, and in doing so was burned alive, he earned some type of second chance. That's my interpretation anyway.
Chapters 6, 7, & Epilogue Chapter 6:
Again, Chapter 6 starts at the end of the Chapter 5 video because of how the game saves, but I think at least for the first bit of the chapter, there could be the real belief that Mateus was granted a second chance and returned to his real-life body.
I'm not familiar with this custom of writing letters to living family members from the perspective of the family member who recently died, and I assume that this was included for two reasons. First to show again that Mateus could still be alive since there was no letter addressed from him, but at the same time, that because there's no note from Mateus' family, that that only feeds into his feelings of loneliness, self-loathing, and depression.
Then there's the old white-bearded guy wearing white, who if you're thinking that Mateus is dead, is a pretty strong indicator that he's God, especially when he says "This is an offering made to spirits and lost people like you." And then with the lights and Mateus' vision flickering throughout the conversation. And the guy definitely doesn't look like the bum that Mateus accuses him of being.
And then Mateus returns to his apartment to see his ex-girlfriend, sister, and niece looking over his corpse, discussing what happened. I do kind of like how Mateus progresses from confusion to anger leading to his downfall again and the end of the chapter. It probably doesn't help that the AI voice isn't able to articulate and emote in the same way that an actual voice actor could have delivered the lines.
Chapter 7 & Epilogue :
I like that Mateus is still seething with hatred and anger when we see him back in Umbral, that his last emotion before being taken back is what he is feeling and might even be amplified upon his return. Even the God-figure admits that this conclusion is not at all surprising. Then the mentioning of Mateus' niece Laura (Laurinha) connecting the Umbral and the beings of light directly to her I thought was a nice touch that could potentially set up a sequel.
I'm kinda glad though that the last shot we have of Mateus is just him seething with anger and hatred and not of him being tortured or consuming corpses, or just wallowing in a puddle of his own putrescence, we don't need to see that as we get enough of what he's going through in the written epilogue. I know it's telling and not showing, but in this instance, I think it's the best choice.
As a walking simulator, I think Umbral did alright. The pacing was a bit off in the middle with Chapters three and four, but I liked and appreciated the information gained. It's far from a perfect game with the limited character animations and the emotionless AI voices. I understand wanting and needing to do indie game development on a budget when only two primary people are involved. My takeaway from Umbral is a game to showcase what MJR Game Studio can do, the story (stories?) that they can make narrative games from, and the potential for what they could do with a larger budget. Since Umbral is the first and currently only game, it will be interesting to see where this developer goes in the future.
[Disclaimer: I received a review key for Umbral through Keymailer, a third-party website/company that connects publishers and developers with content creators. The game was given without promise or expectation of a positive review, only that the game be played and content be created through the playing of the game and the experience. Unless otherwise noted, all content in the following article is from my own playthrough of this game.]
Umbral Systems: Windows Release Date: August 7, 2024 Publisher: MJR Games Studio Developer: Walter O.M. Junior Time Spent: 2 Hours 18 Minutes
Trigger Warning: This article covers several sensitive topics from Umbral that some might find uncomfortable and/or disturbing in nature. Topics such as suicide, self-harm, depression, rape, domestic violence, trauma and torture. If you find any of these topics, related or otherwise, triggering in nature, I would recommend that you skip this article and the related walkthrough videos.
Today we bring you Chapters 3 and 4 from Umbral. Our written commentary of sorts for Chapters 1 and 2 can be viewed in Tuesday's article.
Chapter 3:
Chapter 3 was interesting in terms of both actual gameplay and world/lore building. You essentially walk until you talk with the eye-creature and engage in an exposition-laden conversation about the purpose and function of the Umbral. While I'm not initially against the use of an AI/voice-to-text program, I do think that a different voice could've been used for this creature, maybe something a little deeper and/or raspy and less matter-of-fact.
Once the conversation is over, you then walk into another portal and finish the stage. With there being no puzzles or gates to unlock, this ended up being one of the two shortest stages, although I probably could have cut down my own time had I not run around the stage looking to see if I could make it past the creature and just general exploring.
It did kind of feel that the tree branches highlighted around 1:35, could have been used in a puzzle, maybe something about having the eye creature follow you until that point and the branches encircle the eye like an eyelid; especially if the creature was supposed to be aggressive. Or having the creature be visible from a distance and somehow centering its eye with the branches to activate the portal. But maybe that would've just ended up being unnecessary fluff if the goal of going through the portal was the same.
Looking back at the video, I probably should have gone to see if I could interact at all with any of the black-bubbling portals (that start around 2:14), but I was of the mind that since it was a dark portal, being the opposite of the bright and shining portal, that those were somehow bad. Video game logic. I also feel that I should have tried to walk into or at least get as close as I could to one of the dust devils just to see if anything would happen or if Mateus had a comment on it.
I also liked the depiction of the light beings, that their faces are obscured by their radiance, but only just and in a way that feels like you might be able to make out a better image of them if you look just a little bit longer.
So that's really the end of Chapter 4. Just Mateus walking through a visually striking desert along with other (lost?) souls with the jailers in pursuit towards the end and assisted by a being of light and finally passing along to Chapter 5.
We'll see you tomorrow for the concluding chapters.
[Disclaimer: I received a review key for Umbral through Keymailer, a third-party website/company that connects publishers and developers with content creators. The game was given without promise or expectation of a positive review, only that the game be played and content be created through the playing of the game and the experience. Unless otherwise noted, all content in the following article is from my own playthrough of this game.]
Umbral Systems: Windows Release Date: August 7, 2024 Publisher: MJR Games Studio Developer: Walter O.M. Junior Time Spent: 2 Hours 18 Minutes
Trigger Warning: This article covers several sensitive topics from Umbral that some might find uncomfortable and/or disturbing in nature. Topics such as suicide, self-harm, depression, rape, domestic violence, trauma and torture. If you find any of these topics, related or otherwise, triggering in nature, I would recommend that you skip this article and the related walkthrough videos.
Before we get to the actual game, I need to talk about how the game functions on the Steam Deck, since that was how I played and recorded the footage used in my Walkthrough series. When I first started, I was prompted to install Microsoft Visual Runtime C++, which didn't feel out of place so when prompted, I downloaded and ran the game. After the first chapter, I turned off the game and when I later came back, I was given the same pop-up notification, that I needed to install Microsoft Visual Runtime C++. However, my only option after clicking "Yes" was to Uninstall or Close. If I had chosen "No" when first asked, the game would close immediately. If I selected "Close," the game would be choppy and I would be unable to record. My apparent only course of option was to then "Uninstall" MVRC++, close the game down, and then reinstall it when I opened the game up again. I honestly have no idea what was going on behind the scenes with this, but the Steam Deck still works fine after all of this install/uninstall/install nonsense. So just a heads up if you're planning on playing this on the Steam Deck, that as of Wednesday, August 18th, this is a slightly annoying issue.
Now, onto the first two chapters.
Chapter 1:
I decided to leave in all of the setup at the beginning when I first started the game on the Steam Deck, mainly because that was part of the experience of playing the game. At the time, I didn't know that it was going to become an annoyance of an issue that I didn't see anyone else mentioning on the discussion pages. So it might be a me problem, but even it isn't, I still feel validated keeping it here.
Before Umbral, I was completely unfamiliar with Umbanda or Spiritism, although I was familiar with some of the concepts of Spiritism surrounding reincarnation. I bring this up because while this is brought up before you start the game, I won't be able to comment on the accuracy or authenticity of the depictions of either Umbanda or Spiritism and apart from reading the Wikipedia articles on the topic, I'm not going to try to parse an entire religion or belief system after only 15 minutes of reading.
I also want to preface that all of the spoken dialogue in the game is in Brazilian Portuguese with English subtitles, so I am basing my review on the translation used by the developers. Likewise, I've never been to Brazil, so I can't comment on the look and layout of the main character Mateus' rental in this opening chapter.
For the most part, I feel like Chapter 1 did a good job as both a tutorial level and as an introduction to Mateus' life and all of the reasons that he finds himself to be depressed. I can't really say that the character is or isn't overreacting to this apparent final straw that causes him to commit suicide. However, it does come across as a strange feeling to have the character you're playing narrate all of the ways their life has deteriorated in the 11 minutes you've been playing and then you click a single button to commit suicide. While not uncomfortable, it was a strange experience.
As for the unlocking/using a key mechanic, it reminded me a bit of BAISU in needing to select the item with the right click of the mouse followed by the left click on the mouse to use on the lock. I don't know if it's an engine thing as opposed to the object unlocking if the game detects that the key is in your inventory; which is why it took me several tries after getting the bedroom key before I realized how to open the door. Plus, on the Steam Deck, the mouse buttons are switched, so right click is with the L-Trigger and left click is with the R-Trigger, possibly because the R-Trigger is the more often dominant trigger?
Lastly, I'm not sure I fully understand how Mateus actually killed himself, or how he was able to hang himself while sitting on the ground. Maybe he's supposed to be ever so slightly elevated off of the ground? I'll not think too much about it and just accept that this was somehow a better option than having Mateus shoot himself or throw himself off of the roof of the building. It's all to get us to Chapter 2 anyway.
[For whatever reason, the game doesn't immediately save before starting Chapter 2, so I sat through the Chapter II title card and the beginning intro. I thought that the game had actually saved, which is why I quit back to the main menu after regaining control of Mateus, so when I started the game back up, I ended up having to replay through half of Chapter 1 all over again].
Chapter 2:
I have a strange relationship with this stage as I ended up having to play it three times. The first time was due to recording difficulties on my part, and the second time was because I accidentally deleted my video file. So this video is my third time playing while trying to make it look like my first, or at least how I would have efficiently played my first time, although here I think you can tell that I discovered how to run. By this point, I was just getting tired of playing through this one level that contained so much background groaning and screaming that I wanted to be done with it and move on.
I found all of the screaming to be distracting, especially when talking to Thomas, and since he has a lot of dialogue, you just have to sit there for nearly three minutes. After my first time through, I became okay with there being no speaking animation for Thomas or any of the other characters you meet in the game. You understand that the voice is coming from the character that the camera is focused on and you never talk to more than one person at any given time, so there's no confusion about where the voice is coming from. It could be something that bothered me, but it really doesn't.
Mateus' reaction upon turning the wheel that the soul is attached to was my actual response too. I knew that I was likely to get a groan or a scream out of the soul on the wheel, I just didn't know that I was going to activate it. My bad?
[This next section in the video, from 05:12 through about 07:01, contains non-graphic depictions of Mateus being tortured, all from the first-person perspective. The imagery is violent, but in a way that does not show blood or gore, but the scene could still be disturbing to some viewers].
I did think for a moment that this was supposed to be an extended and agonizing death scene because the jailer caught me and I was hoping that I wasn't going to have to try and run to the door to try and unlock it, run back to Thomas while avoiding the Jailer to acquire another clove of garlic to retry the door in the hopes of not being caught again or I'd have to sit through this same death animation all over again. Thankfully that was mostly not the case, but you still got another clove of garlic after Thomas let you out of the stocks.
I don't really have anything to say about the giant cannibal child thing, other than I'm thankful that it wasn't as graphic as it could have been. I was fine with the amount of detail in the piles of partially consumed bodies.
So that was my written commentary of sorts for the first two chapters in Umbral. I'll have similar articles up the rest of the week for Chapters 3 & 4, and Chapters 5 through the end.
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