GORE

So, I'm someone who saw the trailer for this game and thought it seemed extremely weird and cool. Unfortunately, I feel as though the game did not deliver. This whole review may seem harsh, but please know it is coming from a place of someone who genuinely wanted to like this game. TL;DR: The game has an interesting hook, but the developer chose to pull an M. Night style narrative twist that just chases a horror trend rather than elaborating on the premise. The resulting narrative feels less thought out and more like it was analog horror refrigerator poetry than anything substantial or scary. There is no threat or tension and rather than trusting the game's atmosphere to do the work, the developer feels the need to hold the player's hand to elicit a desired emotional response via subtitled dialogue. Despite all of this, I think this is a decent start for a developer that clearly has a passion for this genre. Overall, I would give it 4/10 stars. I wouldn't recommend it, but I will be keeping an eye out for what this dev does in the future, and I hope they keep refining their craft. Full review: To start with the things I did like about the game, the environmental design was great. The level design at the start felt a little telegraphed, but not in a way that broke immersion for me; it was very easy to figure out where you were supposed to go for the majority of the game. The sound design was pretty solid, though I wish the music was less prominent in places. I enjoyed the analog found footage aesthetic. [spoiler]I thought the fact that the flesh, when tested, came back with the DNA of several missing people was interesting, and the random reference to Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt's 1967 disappearance while swimming did get a chuckle out of me.[/spoiler] That is what I liked about the game. [h2][b]Spoilers from this point forward:[/b][/h2] Now for what I did not enjoy. The initial premise of "weird meat moss is infesting a national park" is solid enough on its own. The game's ending twist, [spoiler]that it was released by a monolith found in The Backrooms[/spoiler] feels extremely contrived, and personally makes me feel like the developer did not have any faith in the initial premise of their game without jumping on trends (despite thinking that premise was at least good enough to hook players via promotional material.) Also, [spoiler]the monolith itself is clearly aped from 2001: A Space Odyssey. I recognize the developer stated it was a point of "inspiration" for the story--considering nothing else even remotely reminiscent of the atmosphere or themes of human evolution and artificial intelligence in 2001 are present, I have to conclude this, and this alone, is what they meant. You cannot just put a monolith in your game and claim one of the main sources of inspiration is 2001: A Space Odyssey. That barely even counts as an homage.[/spoiler] Ironically, if they had taken more inspiration from [spoiler]2001's[/spoiler] sparing use of dialogue, I think the game would've been much better for it. The subtitled thoughts of the protagonist felt stilted and like they were meant to telegraph the player's response, like an audience cue card. They would've been mostly fine if they had been voice acted (which would've provided some characterization to the protagonist), and if there were considerably less of them. Having a protagonist react with swearing to something confusing or frightening feels natural. Having the protagonist say something to the effect of [spoiler]"They must have been doing experiments here" when they enter what is obviously a laboratory and there have been multiple lore documents stating they were doing experiments[/spoiler] is an insult to the player's intelligence. [spoiler]Having the last thing the protagonist says be "this was jake's film camera" is not only an insult to the player's intelligence, it violates the rule of "show, don't tell." In my opinion, the impact of finding the camera could've been magnified by a) establishing this as a possession of Jake's earlier on in the game, and b) not having the protagonist just come out and say that it was his. The implication already exists.[/spoiler] Speaking of the lore documents, there are way too many in a game that took me 45 minutes to play. I believe it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 15, [spoiler]about 12 of which were experiment logs[/spoiler]. This game's story could've cut the majority of these and it would've been a much tighter narrative. And, for all of these documents, they missed the chance to have one very important one: [spoiler]a single note from Jake, explaining that he'd left a bit early and where he went. This could've set up the inciting action of the protagonist looking for their friend much better, in my opinion. I spent much of the first half wondering how the protagonist knew that Jake would be at the lookout.[/spoiler]. Some more minor things that don't fit into a larger critique structure: - For a game titled "Gore," the gore effects did not feel nearly visceral enough; they looked a lot like sculptures that had been painted red rather than anything living. There were no veins, not really any movement beyond a couple of tentacles and the eyes following you as you moved (which itself was a nice touch!). Meat has a lot of layers to it that did not come across here. - There are a couple jumpscares, but beyond that there's not really any threat. I did not feel like I was in danger at all. - [spoiler]The ring of light in the preview images shows up halfway through the game and is never elaborated on. It felt very much like a wasted setpiece--when I reached it I genuinely thought I was at the end of the game. It's a beautiful setpiece, and it's a shame that it immediately is abandoned for the government facility that makes up the majority of the game's back half. A cave with gravity defying rock formations that seems to be in space with a massive orb of light in the middle is basically immediately brushed past. The developer seemingly could not think of anything interesting to do with it, there's just a final fantasy boss arena in the middle of the game for no reason.[/spoiler] DESPITE ALL OF THIS, I do think the developer has some unique ideas and has a passion for horror storytelling. The game does not feel like there was no love put into it. Rather, I think the developer lacks focus and confidence in the story they want to tell. I think if they focus on one idea instead of tossing a bunch of elements they enjoy into the game, and trust that their game can create the desired response in the player, they could create something solid.