Foghorns Drown

太无聊了，按照步行模拟器的标准评判都非常无聊，剧情一般演出一般。 恶劣天气+封闭地点+女性献祭者符号=心理恐怖？这个等式也太落后了吧。结构太松散了，一点没有心理恐怖能带给人的窒息感。“foghorns”就是一个雾加开船的铃声，压迫力还没我高中住宿起床铃大，这个雾除了让玩家找不到路以外不知道还有什么用。设想中应该是迷茫之时警铃大作，凸显一种大脑空旷但迫在眉睫的复合危情，本来会很有张力的，但是实操太平庸了。 再者，民俗方面，说实话，因为时代局限性所以显得有点愚昧以外，没觉得这个民俗有什么伤害性，并且非常简单的小事，感觉甚至都谈不上“民俗”。 场景以及对话的容量都很小，还有三分之一在自说自话（为了展现村民风貌的），三分之一在做梦（为了表现主角梦魇的），剩下三分之一才是推进主线，而且不少时候还挺谜语人。埋伏笔埋得一般般，不是特别刻意，但是也没什么惊喜感。 结局[spoiler]什么灵魂摆渡人和中世纪低配曼尼汉堡店 [/spoiler] 总之，无聊，浪费时间，不值这个价格且差得远

What is missing in fear is made up for in aesthetics. [b]Foghorns Drown[/b] is not so much a terrifying game, but has tension, atmosphere, and vibes in good measure. Brevity and a tight narrative are the priorities here. Some cool collectibles and exploration could keep you busy in excess of 2 hours, but at most you'll probably be looking at 3.5 hours to see everything there is to see here. Even with having to step away I was able to finish in under two hours with some exploration on my part. I don't typically weigh my gaming experiences in value/hour, but if you do I would suggest waiting for a deeper sale. If experiencing an engaging psychological horror game is more your jam I implore you to drown some of the noise and check this out for yourself.

I liked the art style, music, and sound design, but this game is not worth $10. I bought it because I enjoyed the demo and was looking forward to an interesting mystery, but it's barely 90min long. It feels more like a series of disconnected dream sequences than a story. If more time had been spent giving it some breadth and depth, I would have enjoyed it much more.

I don't know what to say about Foghorns Drown. I'm erring on the side of caution and leaving a positive review, but it's with a really, really large asterisk that I'd like to elaborate on below. This will be full spoilers, but I'm not going out of my way to tell you how the game ends or anything - I'm just discussing it in full. Compliments first; it's a lovely looking game with a lot to offer in terms of setting. There are cinematic touches and flourishes to basic conversations that elevate them quite a bit based on the camerawork or colour palette of the scenes. Unfortunately, this pretty much concludes my list of positives. Foghorns Drown is a game where the setup is all there is. An incredibly compelling premise; you're the ferryman awoken in the night by a strange woman fleeing from something- be it just a bad dream or something else. Bodies start turning up and your grip on reality is starting to slip, meaning that as you investigate you may, in fact, be investigating crimes that you yourself comitted. What this might lead you to believe is that the game has a sort of sprawling, investigative nature where you uncover the plot piece by piece, but that couldn't be further from the truth. The game's story happens with or without you while a cast of both disinterested characters and underutilized ones (there's a whole swathe of fellow workers whose dialog amounts to discussing the weather whenever you find them to speak with) and there's no ability to effect any outcomes or uncover plot before it slaps you in the face. The gameplay lacks any real player agency of any kind, bordering on being closer to a visual novel than any other genre. The most engaging piece of interaction I found was a dartboard that I spent an unfathomable amount of time trying to score a bullseye on, but I can't help but imagine if the things I liked about the game were better integrated. What if the dialog branched a little and clever questions could lead you to greater understandings of your surroundings, or perhaps the many faces you see every day around the town? What if the fishing event was an actual minigame where you could discuss the happenings around the area with Karl, the guy fishing with you? What if the darts minigame was part of a segment where you got drunk with your fellow workers? What if I got the chance to know the setting before the massive end segment that implies huge relevance to things that, frankly, felt more like fleeting moments than a coherent, singular narrative? I streamed this game in full and the audience largely agreed that as beautiful of an experience as it was, there just wasn't really any binding element or central narrative to really get grips on. It's full of colours and symbolism and mythology but none of it really comes together by the time you're on the victory lap, being shown the ghost of a narrative you didn't even really meet before it concluded. That being said, I know how much a negative review can hurt a dev- and the vast majority of us agreed in the moment that whatever the clearly very talented and very passionate developers move on to create after this is likely going to be a banger. To that end, it's worth it, but... man I wish there was more here.

[h3][7.4/10][/h3] Короткий сюрреалістичний інді горор. Враження від гри дуже гарні, видно що зроблено талановитими людьми, але завершується дуже швидко, багато не сказавши. (до уваги, гра не підтримує хмарні збереження) https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3769228277 [u]ГАРНЕ:[/u] - Графічна частина просто не має ніяких нарікань. Гра виглядає дуже гарно та стильно. Особливо якщо ви поціновувач піскельного low-poly. - Саундтрек та поодинокі звуки мають вагу та якісно передають атмосферу. - Наратив послідовний та не дуже заплутаний. - Керуванню та камері окремий респект. - Можливість пропустити репліки персонажів. [u]ПОГАНЕ:[/u] - Наявність багів на релізі. - Ну дуже коротка, де перше проходження займає півтори години. Гра могла б бути просто в рази краще якби автори розширили хронометраж, та додали більше унікальних сцен. Не вистачає глибини. - Гра не те що б заохочувала гравця на дослідження світу чи персонажів, та досить прямолінійна а вибори впливають тільки на неважливі за сюжетом репліки. - Я залишився байдужим до фіналу.

this game only did atmosphere right, everything else including story is just way too rushed

Wrapped up Foghorn's Drown & as much as I enjoyed my time with it, the game ultimately ran out of steam & you can feel it strongest in the writing. Foghorn's Drown is a short narrative about a small village who rely on a foghorn ferry system to cross the lake unto the shoreline. You play as the ferryman, your job is to ferry people across the lake & experiencing the strange supernatural events surrounding the village. As the game progresses, you sense the doom vibes of the village as their priest has fallen ill, the townsfolk are uneasy & suspect a terrible plague is upon them. You cannot go wrong with a hook quite like that, it's begging to tell a fresh story & you can tell that the presentation is ironed to a tee setting yourself up to a real thriller of a narrative. However, just like a sparkler in New Years, it fades quick as it hastily fast tracks to the end. I had previously played the demo for this game back in Next Fest & I can truly see the developer working on stronger projects in the future, but the last half of Foghorn's Drown is one I sat down for several days on occasion flipping a coin on whether or not to recommend this game. The demo ended so strongly & leaves enough open for discussion & interpretation, the final game ends so hastily that you can't help but feel like you were being told the cool events that you missed out on rather than experiencing them. There were times where I had felt the author's fear that players would find themselves bored by ferrying people around with the use of jump cuts as a way to quickly get across the lake when maintaining & riding the ferry was by far my favorite part of the game; it cemented a routine that was perfect for a slow burn psychological horror that this game did not have the runtime for what it wanted to accomplish. Even its admittedly large cast of characters of the village never had much time to come onto their own. We get glimpses of their lives by talking to everyone at different points, but significant interactions such as fishing with the fisherman don't feel like I'm exploring this man's fixation for fishing & taking a chill moment before the horrors return it's rather exposition & context for what's to come that didn't feel earned. The stakes felt high, we had little information to go on about the overall mystery that it felt delightful prime set up for really good answers that just never hit. Even ran the narrative a second time after witnessing the ending & it absolutely soured the first half as a result. If I were allowed to make an informational or mixed review, this would absolutely be it. Though I cannot recommend it at base price, but you get it for half or lower then yeah you'll be in for a short treat. To the dev reading this, you are in the right ballpark. Refine your craft, you have a knack for developing a great hook.

A decent psychological horror. Maybe a little too much on the [spoiler]nightmare timeskips and timeskips in general[/spoiler], and a little too short for the price. But other than that, a really good game with a great atmosphere. Good job devs!