Notice that I might be changing this review to positive depending on the future updates.
DOCTOR VISCERA is a horror escape room game with some survival horror elements. You play as someone who is trying to escape Doctor Viscera (and the nurse), and you will have to solve several puzzles to fulfill that objective (most of them consisting on finding the right item and use it at the right place). You have 5 lifes to do so (represented as days, losing one everytime they capture you), losing all your progress if you lose them all, To avoid them, your best weapons are going to be stealth, hiding spots, running around corners and vents.
Sound design and atmosphere are AMAZING, giving creepy vibes the entire time (perfect if you are here for the horror), while also easily helping so you can tell where the enemies are due to footsteps. Gameplay-wise is great in concept; as I mentioned, you are meant to solve several puzzles regarding item hunting, the problem being that you only have two item slots, being a huge pain the first times you are playing this game, because you just don't know where you might need to use them (it's not that bad after you have played enough, but beware that it will be really tedious at the start). Also, take into consideration that everytime you restart, the items to be found might not be in the exact same place (the locations and overall places where you need to use your items will be the same), so you can be easily replaying this severeal times and it won't feel repetitive, which is great because the game counts with 3 different endings.
Ok, with all I have mentioned, it really sounds like I'm complimenting the game, so why the bad review? Well... BUGS! Or maybe just a few terrible game mechanics. Let's start by something that's not a bug that I hate: I have no proofs (but no doubts either) that enemies will detect what items you are carrying and will lurk near places where you need to use them, which could not be that bad if you like the constant feeling of enemies around you, but it makes the whole point of stealth and distractions useless, because you will throw an item to distract them, but they will immediately go back by the place you were going (now, this might be an insane coincidence, but it kept happening to me over and over, a couple of times even noticing that the Nurse would just move 2-3 steps ahead, then 2-3 steps back and repeat over and over by the place where I needed to go... For over a minute, until I decided to get spotted on purpose to lead them somewhere else). With that being said, this could still have some workarounds, but here is where the bugs come... ENEMIES CAN TELEPORT... and this is not an assumption, I have seen it happening it front of me several times. Worst part being that I have been killed by enemies teleporting, just appearing in front of me out of nowhere, worst part being that sometimes they can just kill you if you are inbetween the starting and ending point of the teleport, or they could trigger a chase, with you having no idea what just happened, even if you were in a hiding spot, getting immediately killed while you are still clueless. As if that wasn't enough, they can also fly and kill you through walls, reminding me a lot to the buggy experience that was Hello Neighbor. These bugs sound bad enough, but they are even worse if you consider you have to restart everything after getting captured 5 times (it happened to me during one run that I died 3 times due to enemies teleporting, so I just gave up).
Now, THAT'S NOT IT. Another bug is that items can glitch through drawers and just disappear. It has happened to me more than a couple of times and, like I mentioned at the start, almost every item here is a key item to solve a puzzle, so an item disappearing means immediate GG, which is even worse if you are playing your first hours, because you might not realize and you will just waste time by exploring, trying to find an item that doesn't exist anymore (like it also happened to me). Now I learnt to recognize when an item disappearS (because they make a vibration noise against the drawers), so I just restart whenever that happens.
Another bad aspect of the game is that there is no save and quit, which I understand why (so there's no cheese quit to beat the game), but also can make the experience frustrating considering the game can be really long (up to 2-3 hours if you are just starting, having no idea about where items can be), and you will just have to lose all your progress if you want to temporarily quit. I genuinely think a save and quit option that can only be used when you are out of danger, in a safe spot, should be implemented, so they avoid people quitting before dying just to preserve lifes. And if they try to do it while in danger, it means immediate capture, saving the game starting the next day.
Notice that the game is still beatable, but it's far from ideal. I have done all three endings in normal difficulty, while getting some extra achievements, only missing the ones for harder difficulties, which I won't attempt to do unless I see these bugs fixed.
Anyways, I repeat, GREAT concept. Perfect atmosphere, graphics and overall vibes (I gotta tell it's really creepy to see the Doctor Viscera chasing you), but the experience gets ruined due to all the bugs and questionable decisions that I already mentioned. You can check out some gameplay here, it includes the bugs I already mentioned, if you don't believe me they are real https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgKSdv2YrUI
