Hope Deferred

This game feels like the unholy union between King's Field, Baroque, and the colour scheme of Dario Argento's Suspiria. Absolutely rancid vibes, deeply uncomfortable to play, disarmingly personal, generally cryptic as all hell. I love it.

---{ Graphics }--- ☑ You forget what reality is ☐ Beautiful ☐ Good ☐ Decent ☐ Bad ☐ Don‘t look too long at it ☐ MS-DOS ---{ Gameplay }--- ☑ Very good ☐ Good ☐ It's just gameplay ☐ Mehh ☐ Watch paint dry instead ☐ Just don't ---{ Audio }--- ☑ Eargasm ☐ Very good ☐ Good ☐ Not too bad ☐ Bad ☐ I'm now deaf ---{ Audience }--- ☑ Kids ☑ Teens ☑ Adults ☑ Grandma ---{ PC Requirements }--- ☑ Check if you can run paint ☐ Potato ☐ Decent ☐ Fast ☐ Rich boi ☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer ---{ Game Size }--- ☐ Floppy Disk ☐ Old Fashioned ☐ Workable ☐ Big ☐ Will eat 15% of your 1TB hard drive ☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it ☑ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data ---{ Difficulty }--- ☐ Just press 'W' ☐ Easy ☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master ☐ Significant brain usage ☐ Difficult ☑ Dark Souls ---{ Grind }--- ☐ Nothing to grind ☑ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks ☐ Isn't necessary to progress ☐ Average grind level ☐ Too much grind ☐ You'll need a second life for grinding ---{ Story }--- ☐ No Story ☐ Some lore ☐ Average ☐ Good ☐ Lovely ☑ It'll replace your life ---{ Game Time }--- ☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee ☐ Short ☐ Average ☐ Long ☑ To infinity and beyond ---{ Price }--- ☑ It's free! ☑ Worth the price ☐ If it's on sale ☐ If u have some spare money left ☐ Not recommended ☐ You could also just burn your money ---{ Bugs }--- ☑ Never heard of ☐ Minor bugs ☐ Can get annoying ☐ ARK: Survival Evolved ☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs ---{ ? / 10 }--- ☐ 1 ☐ 2 ☐ 3 ☐ 4 ☐ 5 ☐ 6 ☐ 7 ☐ 8 ☐ 9 ☑ 10 ---{ Hope }--- ☑ Deferred

Firstly, a thank you to the dev who gave me a code at a convention and told me a little about the game! I think the game nails the old PSX aesthetic! The imagery is amazing. It's very simple, but everything has just enough detail to make each spot feel like a real, lived-in place, like it could exist. The story is a little confusing, but I feel this was done on purpose, as our character is supposed to be in a religious psychosis. It feels like it's meant to be told through the environment and with the characters themselves and their actions, not their dialogue per se. At the beginning of the game, I had wished the fighting mechanics were a little more drawn out, but the more I played, the more I realized most of the hostile NPCs are there for you to move faster, keep you out of an area, and contribute to the environmental storytelling. It works pretty well with the oppressive feeling the game is giving off. I had a lot of fun finding all those little hidden paths, opening every door and chest I could find. It was a blast to find a new key and then suddenly remember a whole area I’d forgotten about. Then go back and sometimes get a whole new unlocked area or a new spell or armor piece.

Absolutely loving this so far. It's a shame modern gamers pretty much guarente we'll never get a AAA game like this ever again, but its amazing that indie devs are picking up the slack. I know this one started development a long while ago, but so many KF-likes are starting to pop up now, and I am SO for it. Especially games built in the SoM engine RIP Mick, aka Holy Diver, your work on the SoM plugin will be legendary.

Playing Hope Deferred felt like stepping into a surreal nightmare I couldn’t shake off. The puzzles kept messing with my mind, making every corner feel unpredictable. I kept getting lost but in a way that made me want to explore more and piece things together. Fighting enemies felt slow and kind of pointless, so I just sneaked past most of them. Overall, the game’s strange vibe and atmosphere kept me hooked from start to finish.

feels illegal to play

Certified classic Dungeon Crawler with modern game play. By far the best thing that's happened in years since the Among Us popularity spike.