Also before I go to bed, some quick thoughts on a horror game releasing on Steam on July 31st,
Pineview Drive.
So I only got some brief time with a demo build of it for a horror site and I decided to play a tad as I'm curious, but not play too much as I actually want to play it fully when it comes out without knowing too much. As such, these impressions are brief and not based on a whole experience, but a beginning part.
But I think this game is going to find a cult audience. When I first heard of it, I was kind of worried it'd be some super buggy lame jump-scare mess or something, but it's quite the opposite really.
The game apparently has a day system, where you have 30 days to do... Something. I'm not quite sure what, the demo build is in German (full game has English and German), but what I can say is the store page says the area opens up more, little by little, as the nights go by.
On that same front, this is a tricky game. It really does have a heavy atmosphere, and seems to have a firm understanding of what makes a cold, isolated atmosphere where you feel alone, but doesn't become dull through intrigue. At least early on, this all could change definitely later.
The game apparently has a system where it monitors the player to see how they react to moments in the game and changes elements of the game based on player reaction. Things like keyboard and mouse strokes at certain parts, if you stay in an area for too long, if you rush past something, etc. I don't know how it works for the game as I didn't play enough of it to really see it or realize it was doing something in-game with this, but it sounds interesting. And on that front, the game had a few decent creepy element things during the beginning.
I'm not quite sure why I'm writing this as this seems like one of those games I should play in English and judge based on the whole experience, a single beginning part would be like reading the first few pages of a Lovecraft novel and judging it from that, as it's kind of slow and a lot of its elements at least sound like they'll be put into play more later into the game. However, for now I can say the game definitely has my interests. I would say the developer has a good concept of 'imagery' horror, by which I mean a fixation on small yet creepy pieces of imagery that by itself is creepy, and then subtle things that put you a bit on edge while not really fully scaring you, at least yet.
I guess I mainly want to bring up this game and say it at least didn't seem like crap, I'm actually more excited for it now, but I guess I'll have to see how things fold out in the game as with the sort of ambitions the game has it could fall apart later into the game, but I hope not.
Of course, you can get lucky, but it's a gamble.
