Steam's Halloween Sale - My Top 5 Most Wanted

Happy Halloween! As always, I'm trying to keep you up to date with all of the horrors you should be aware of. Today, I'm going to run you through my Top 5 horrors in the Steam Halloween sale. I haven't bought them, yet, but I'm definitely likely to be finding mothballs in my wallet a little sooner than usual next month. I can never resist horror games on sale...

Here's my Top 5.

Killing Floor 2

A little while back, this 6-player co-op multiplayer mayhem was free to enjoy for one weekend only. Honestly, killing zombies (and the many deadly, disturbing variations of them) became a welcome addition to my evenings, and I was more than a little disappointed when the free rock-filled, gory action was taken away. You can read my full preview right here. Luckily, Killing Floor 2 is now only £13.39 on Steam, and I think it is finally time to bring Tripwire Interactive's creation back into my evenings. 

Dead Realm

Here is another multiplayer horror that I've been excited by, but too cheap to buy. Dead Realm is essentially a scary game of hide-and-seek, where the main mode has ghosts (seen as demented puppets or butchers) hunting down human players that are hidden around a large, abandoned mansion. It is currently in early access, and doesn't yet have too many different modes or locations; it just didn't seem worth £10.99. At only £3.29 in the Steam sale, though, I'm not sure I can resist. Read all about 3BLACKDOT's horrifying hide-and-seek game here.

Dead Space (1 & 2 Bundle)

If you don't know what Dead Space is, you probably shouldn't even be here... I'm joking, kind of. The Dead Space series is one of my favourite horrors of last generation, where protagonist Isaac Clarke explores spaceships and stations that are no longer responding to communications. As an engineer, he is sent aboard to fix whatever mechanical issue the inhabitants may be having. Unfortunately, they should have called for space marines, because the problem is much worse than a broken fuse. What follows is a series full of nightmarish creatures, amazing weapons, and a story that only gets better. Well, until Dead Space 3, but we don't really talk about that. This bargain bundle pulls together the first two games in the series for just £4.99, and I will be using my Alien Alphaware to immerse myself into this sci-fi horror once more. Thank you, Steam. You're the best.

Layers of Fear

Another intriguing horror, another game that I just couldn't afford when I found it. Layers of Fear follows a psychological horror journey through the house of an artist. In trying to create his masterpiece, he has fallen into the depths of insanity, and the entire world will unravel around the player as they try follow his journey to its end. Intrigued? Read my full article here. At £7.49, it isn't the biggest discount of the games I have seen, but this horror is still relatively new - only in Early Access - and I just can't wait any longer to see the big picture. 

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter

If I'm honest, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is the game I know least about in this list, but that doesn't change the fact that I want it. I've only heard great things about this first-person mystery, and though it isn't outright horror, it is said to be highly story-driven and have strong puzzle and horror elements. Plus, the trailer showed autumn leaves, which speaks to the seasonal romantic in me. At £5.09 on Steam, I may have to purchase it, because it's been waiting in my PSN basket for a week now at £9.29. Sorry, Sony. Steam know what I want.

That's your lot, folks!

And that's my Top 5! I have only had time to go through the first 10 pages (there’s 76, last I checked), so this list is by no means exhaustive, and I'm sure that there's loads more games I want. In fact, I'm probably scouring Steam right now...

Do yourself a favour and snatch some Halloween bargains before November 2^nd, when the Halloween Steam sale returns to nothing more than shadows and cobwebs under the bed. You'll thank me later. Comment below and tell me what great games you've picked up, or get in touch with me on Twitter, where I'm sure to be spouting more horror nonsense than ever.

Happy Halloween to all of you!

The Intruder - Preview

A few weeks back, I was running around EGX like a headless chicken (with a notepad). One of the games I was searching for was The Intruder, a first-person survival horror where you control an unknown protagonist as they prepare themselves for the return of a terrifying, but forgotten (repressed) entity. I'd seen a trailer showing off the monochrome world and open-world exploration, and I needed to see more. It wasn't meant to be. Fast forward to today, and I've managed to get my hands on an early build of the game, and can write an extended preview of The Intruder as part of IGM's week of Halloween horror. Don't worry, I'm the only one calling it that.

The build I played through was set in a school, and aimed to show off the gameplay, with the open-worldness of the open world yet to come. Part of me was glad, because the woods surrounding the school looked foggy and easy to get lost in. Plus, there was more than enough in the school to keep me hiding in the girl's bathroom in complete darkness. Hm? Yeah, this happened.

After taking my first tentative steps inside the school, which I soon discovered was far less abandoned than it seemed, I found a note. The note was written by someone hiding out there, and it explained that he had been sleeping on a mattress by the front of the school. He had initially been camping out in the cafeteria on the second floor, but had since had to move down a floor. There were plans to collect a gun hidden on the third floor, though he could never quite make it there. By the time I was reading this note, he was long gone; maybe off searching for supplies, maybe no longer alive. Either way, this note helped me realise two things: the world of The Intruder is a lonely place, embodied by its monochromatic style, and those that don't prepare die.

With that in mind, I familiarised myself with the game's inventory and survival system. The inventory does exactly what you'd expect and stores anything you pick up, and the survival system shows everything you’ll need to keep an eye on to survive in this world. You have to stay alive, eat and rest, and there are bars on the HUD to represent each of these. Within the inventory there are also timers for the amount of time left until starvation, sleep deprivation, or your flashlight battery runs out (which I actually felt should have been represented on the main HUD, Outlast style). There is even a "memory clarity" rating, which probably links to the amnesia aspect of the game, though this wasn't explored in the build I played.

My search around the ground floor began well. It was daytime, I didn't think there was anyone there. I felt safe. Then I looked through a barricade, and a shadowy, humanoid creature with two glowing eyes stared back at me, before hiding inside the room. I was spooked. What was it? It seemed more scared of me than I was of it. For all I knew, this was how people looked in The Intruder. Maybe I was staring out of a couple of glowing eyes myself...

Without further incident, I found a key to access the rest of the ground floor, which also contained the staircase to the second floor. It was much darker, but I could make out the slumped forms of more shadow people. They didn't seem all that disturbed by my presence. I held my breath and crept past, praying I'd make it to the stairs. Somehow, I did, but the worst was yet to come.

In the cafeteria, where I was supposed to find a key to the third floor, a new creature patrolled. It was tall and spindly, and looked much more alien. I knew it would want to hurt me. By this point, night had fallen, and the only way to see anything was to use my flashlight. This alerted the creature to my whereabouts, and, with the help of its shadow brethren, whom had been disturbed as I ran past into the toilets, they managed to hunt me down. It was all very tense, and I spent much of my time waiting in the darkness, hoping that I'd escaped death for a little longer. I'm just not that lucky. However, I hadn't been expecting so many hostile creatures. 

Based on my knowledge of The Intruder, I had thought I would be faced with one entity, not an army of them. This made me feel more like I was intruding on them, and left me a little unsure of whether I had met the entity, or whether something entirely different would be searching for me on release day. Only time will tell.

Though the core gameplay mechanics are in place, for the most part, I do have some constructive criticism thus far. Most of these are based on issues that I’m sure will be sorted before release, but some are related to building atmosphere. 

Currently, the resolution of the how-to-play screen is off, and some of the buttons are hidden outside the reaches of the screen. Also, the calibration of the inventory seems to be skewed, and I had to click to the side of something to actually use it. Similarly minor is that the day/night cycle, while functioning, does so at the wrong time. For example, I began playing at 1am according to the in-game clock and it was clearly daytime, with night-time approaching at about 6am. Obviously, these are tiny issues, but ones that all add to the overall polish of a game, therefore worth mentioning. I've got your back, devs. 

In terms of atmosphere, I felt like The Intruder could ramp it up in a few ways (that the studio may already have in mind for later development). Background music to set the atmosphere would be a nice addition, though complete silence does add atmosphere in its own way, I suppose – especially when this silence is broken by the clumsiness of knocking over a chair, something that is consistent between my character in both real and digital worlds. As it stands, the flashlight is also far too strong. It is actually more like turning on a flood light than a flashlight, and lights up a room in its entirety, instead of a smaller beam cutting through the darkness, casting shadows of things that may or may not be there.

Another time, the large creature actually was there, and I could hear it rasping in the darkness, somewhere nearby. Eventually, I turned my flashlight on and it was right behind me, though completely harmless, as it had gotten itself stuck in the wall. I almost felt bad for it. A few minutes on and I was whimpering in the cubicle of the girl’s bathroom while it beat me to death, so the feeling definitely passed.

Was the build of The Intruder I played really early in development? Yes. Am I still as excited by the game as I was before? Definitely. The core concepts of the game are firmly in place, and while there is still quite a way to go to reach the atmospheric open-world survival horror being promised by the developers, it is heading in the right direction. Exploring even just one location was enjoyable, yet tense and challenging, and I can already see how the survival aspects of the game will work. I’m intrigued to see how ‘the intruder’ is integrated into the full game, and whether I should be preparing myself for an army of strange creatures, or just the one so terrifying that it can cause amnesia. I really hope that creature exists, because I have a few moments I’d love to forget – that girl’s bathroom memory being right at the start of the list.

More information on The Intruder can be found on the game’s website, or by following it on Twitter. I’ll be keep an eye on updates and make sure you’re all kept in the loop when you stop by, but until then, there’s a gun on the third floor that I have to get, even if it kills me… again. Wish me luck.

Getting déjà vu right now? That may be because you read this on IGM, where my preview was first featured! Check IGM out for all the latest on indie games.

Nightmare Attack

Nothing is scarier to a child than the monsters that will come for them once the lights have been turned off. Luckily, Egyptian studio Appsinnovate has prepared for this, and has released Nightmare Attack just in time for Halloween. In this iOS and Android game, a child will be protecting himself and his dreams from such opportunistic monsters using his toys.

Nightmare Attack is a tower-defense game, whereby gamers will have to use a variety of towers to fight off monsters as they try to make their way through Dreamland. Monsters come in all shapes and sizes, such as goblins, wolves, wasps and dragons, but so do the toys, or “towers,” use to fight them off. Similarly to most tower-defense games, the creatures follow a pre-determined path, and the gamer builds their defences around this edges. Towers include: a paintball tower, the basic turret for damage; a bubble-gum tower, which slows monsters down; a firework tower, causing damage to a larger area; and a rainbow tower, which confuses monsters into attack each other.

Bubbles earned by destroying monsters are used to purchase these towers, in whatever strategic combination a player wishes, and each tower can be upgraded to keep up the increasing difficulty. There are also a couple of spells, with a Demolition spell reigning destruction onto the creatures, and a Fairy spell raising the power and range of towers. The protection of this child’s dreams will take place across either a farm or a forest environment, and additional locations may be added at a later date.

Nightmare Attack is available on iOS and Android devices completely free, and more information can be found on the studio’s website, Facebook or Twitter.

Getting déjà vu right now? That may be because you read this on IGM, where my article was first featured! Check IGM out for all the latest on indie games.

Lucius II: Prophecy

Most people have heard of Lucius, the son of Satan, also known as Damien in The Omen series. No matter what name he goes by, he is the anti-Christ, and people tend to die in his presence. Well, in November these deaths will be taking place on consoles, when Shiver Games’ Lucius II: Prophecy is released on “major gaming consoles.” While the press release we received didn’t mention which consoles, it is probably safe to assume that the game will be released on Playstation 4 and Xbox One.

Lucius II is the sequel to Lucius (makes sense, doesn’t it?), and sees Lucius rise from the burning wreck that was once his family home. He is taken to the psychiatric ward of St. Benedict’s Hospital, ready to continue Satan’s bidding in a 1970s setting. Playing as six year old Lucius, gamers will cause havoc wherever they go, and cause more than a few untimely deaths. These deaths, similar to the first game, will come with an element of freedom, and gamers will be able to get creative in their murdering. For example, will Lucius poison someone’s coffee, or will he knock down a ceiling fan for more of a show?

The studio has promised that the updates made to Lucius II in order to bring the game to consoles will provide the player with more freedom, more devastation, and most importantly, more opportunities to “sin,” which is putting Lucius’ actions lightly.

No set date, or even confirmed consoles, have been announced as of yet, but Lucius II: Prophecy will be released on consoles of some variety in November of this year. More information on the game can be found on the official website, Facebook, Twitter, or even Steam, where Lucius is ready to kill for $19.99.

Getting déjà vu right now? That may be because you read this on IGM, where my article was first featured! Check IGM out for all the latest on indie games.

Vapour: Part 1

It is the week of Halloween, which means that I need to keep gamers up-to-date with the latest in horror gaming - obviously, I've been doing that for 57 days now! But I've picked up the pace when it comes to featuring horror on IGM. Let's start with Vapour: Part 1, a game which was first covered in June, and is not for the faint-hearted, with an age-restriction of 18+.

According to Skobbejak Games, its PC horror, which combines old-school FPS action with modern elements of horror, puzzle-solving and platforming, is the game that will have gamers checking into a psychiatric ward this Halloween.

In Vapour, a warlock named Charles has been taken captive by a cult, and they take pleasure in finding all sorts of new ways in which to torture him. That is, until they decide to execute him for good. It is then that Charles casts one last spell to save himself from damnation, and puts the player in his place between purgatory and hell. 

From here, players must use Charles' weakened powers to fend off hordes of demons, discover the tortured Warlock's hidden past, and find their way back to Earth, where the plan is to take revenge on those responsible. In order to do this, players must survive spell-based combat, solve puzzles, explore non-linear levels, and make their way through a "gory plot [that promises] to scare [gamers] witless."

Vapour: Part 1 is available now on Steam and itch.io, and anyone wanting to talk horror and gaming can do so with Skobbejak Games on Facebook and Twitter. More information can also be found on the studio’s website and IndieDB page.

Getting déjà vu right now? That may be because you read this on IGM, where my article was first featured! Check IGM out for all the latest on indie games.

The Library

Libraries tend to be places of reading, learning, and the occasional “shush”, should anyone accidentally turn their page too quickly. Not so in first-person horror adventure The Library, where gamers will be trying to get their hands on the hidden wealth within its four walls. One thing worth mentioning; the library is haunted. Thanks a bunch, 4dMinds Studio.

Players step into the (hopefully squeak-free) boots of a thief, looking to snatch the ancient treasures inside. The spirit of the last librarian has other ideas. What was once a simple heist becomes a mission to navigate the library to find the secrets and clues hiding inside the mystery behind the library's haunting. All the while, the spirit will be trying to hunt you down like an overdue book.

Based on the trailer above, gameplay seems to be mainly exploration focused, along a similar vein to the Amnesia series. Explore the library, discover the truth, solve a few puzzles, and try to stay alive. If the game is indeed similar to Amnesia, this won’t be easy.

The Library is available for free on itch.io, and can be played on Windows PCs. Feel like a late night visit to the library? The team at 4dMinds have you covered.

Getting déjà vu right now? That may be because you read this on IGM, where my article was first featured! Check IGM out for all the latest on indie games.

Matilda's Horrible Dream

New jobs can be exciting, but they also be kind of scary. Taking on the role of a Remote Dream Analyst is definitely the latter, and is what the player will be doing in Dave Lasala's Matilda's Horrible Dream, an "atmospheric, minimalist, horror runner" that is now available on PC and Android devices.

It is the responsibility of the Dream Analyst to guide Matilda safely through her nightmares, a place where she is endlessly chased by a monster that resembles a clown with sharp teeth and claws - features that Lasala added after consulting with his daughter on what makes a scary monster. It seems like she knows her stuff. 

While running, players will be able to turn lights on to slow the monster down, or even shine a flashlight to temporarily freeze it in its tracks. It will never stop for long, though, and the only way to save Matilda from her nightmares is to reach the "Dream Exit." In trying to achieve this, Lasala states that players will experience an "ominous, eerie atmosphere" with "engrossing, unearthly sound design," and suggests that play with headphones will improve this further. There is also a high score system, which aims to add some fun and addictive gameplay to the fear of escaping a nightmare.

Lasala’s inspiration for MHD came when he was putting together a few simple game ideas, with a plan to improve his Unity skills. After deciding on featuring a clown as the pursuing creature, which he’d always found to be “creepy and mysterious,” ever since Stephen King’s IT, he was been faced with challenges that many a game developer can probably relate to. The most important of these challenges came after the game was actually developed, as he struggled to find an audience for his game, a horror of a more casual variety.

Matilda's Horrible Dream is available for free on desktop, and there is both a free version on Android (with ads) and a paid version for $0.99 USD (without ads). 

Getting déjà vu right now? That may be because you read this on IGM, where my article was first featured! Check IGM out for all the latest on indie games.

Goodnight Butcher

It is the night shift at Happy Knife Butchery, and one worker is tasked with preparing the meat for the next day's customers. Unfortunately, in Perfect Square Studios' 2D arcade horror, Goodnight Butcher, they won't be alone.

Players, while sawing, chopping, grinding and mincing meat for the next day, will be faced with apparitions of the haunting variety. Whether they are haunting the butcher's meat shop, or the protagonist's mind itself, it is too early to tell. However, in Goodnight Butcher's Story Mode, players will be able to uncover the truth behind the Happy Knife Butchery across 13 different rooms, each with their own monsters and hazards to avoid.

If players are up for a challenge and feel like competing for the highest scores with their friends, they can then move onto Nightmare Mode, where the game's hand-drawn style and "spine-chilling" atmosphere will truly put them to the test. The studio describe its game as a "modern take on classic 2D horror titles like Witch's House, Ib, and Mad Father," which should give gamers an idea of the kind of experience they are entering into.

Sound like a meaty horror worth getting into? Find out everything a butcher would need to know to survive the night by visiting the game's Steam page, the studio's website, Facebook, Twitter, or even LinkedIn, if anyone has their business hat on.

The Nullpoint

Apologise to your bank account now, because a new horror game has launched a Kickstarter campaign. It's called The Nullpoint, in development by Schell Games, and it looks like it just may be worth your time and money.

In The Nullpoint, it's 2109, and humankind has discovered an alien structure floating at the edge of the solar system, seemingly abandoned. I'm sure you're not surprised to hear that the first recon missions did not go well. Now, you control a group of survivors that has become stranded on said alien structure, and it's up to you to guide them to safety.

There will be up to five survivors at a time, and gameplay is similar to a real-time strategy, with parts survival horror. Supplies are limited, and searching for resources can be dangerous. Who knows what is hiding in dark? Sometimes you'll be able to fight hostiles off, but other times the only option will be to run or hide. As long as you're able to keep one survivor alive, you can continue exploring, and possibly even find other survivors to replenish your group number. Lose everyone, however, and the dungeons will reset, similar to any rogue-like game you may have played. 

Survivors will also be able to board their spaceship and use it to travel between docks on this alien station, in the hope of finding more resources. These very same resources can also be used to repair and upgrade your ship, so it's worth taking the risk. I assume there’s some logical reason as to why this spaceship can’t be used to get back to Earth, as this is clearly the only sane option.

Interested? There's a prototype of The Nullpoint on the Kickstarter campaign and the website, along with more information on what you can expect, and when the game will release on PC and Mac. Schell Games is trying to reach a goal of $135,000 USD by November 13th, so make sure you check it out and make any pledges before then, and then let them know how awesome you are via Twitter. The survivors are counting on you.

Euclidean

Not every horror has to take place inside an abandoned school or hospital, or needs to take a deep look into the psychological effects of fear on a protagonist or the player themselves. Some horrors just want to live outside the box. One such title is Euclidean, developed by Alpha Wave Entertainment, and it's a geometric horror, which makes what I just said about being 'outside the box' pretty damn funny. 

In Euclidean you will endlessly fall through a place that is outside of our "comfortable, familiar dimensions;" a place that humanity was never meant to go. You have no weapons, and can do nothing but fall through nine stages of atmospheric geometric tension, trying your best to avoid the many different shapes and forms trying to end your life. It sounds different. I'm in.

To make the experience even more disturbing, Euclidean supports the Oculus Rift, binaural 3D audio, and a "haunting soundtrack." There are also three difficulty settings (hard, nightmarish and impossible), if you feel like adding a little more frustration to your experience. As much as I’d love to tell you more about it, I think it is the kind of game that is probably explained best by playing it yourself, so I’ll give you that information and send you on your merry way.

Euclidean can be purchased on Steam for £2.79, and although it is only short (roughly an hour and a half), reviews have all been quite positive, comparing the game to the kind of surreal horror made famous by H.P. Lovecraft. If you feel like getting a little weird tonight - because, why wouldn't you? - head to Steam or the studio's website for more information and to Twitter to get into dimension-destroying chats with the studio.

Beyond Flesh and Blood

Here comes another horror-esque title that clawed its way into my life on Twitter, with a little bit of action and sci-fi thrown in. It also fancies itself as a fast-paced third-person shooter, driven by its story and a dollop of ‘gratuitous gore’ for good measure. I won’t keep you in suspense any longer. I’m talking about an independent game by Pixelbomb Games, which goes by the name Beyond Flesh and Blood.

Set on a dystopian Earth, and beginning in what is left of Manchester, UK, in the year 2281, you will have to fight through a world where dehumanisation and cybernetics go hand-in-hand with political instability and environmental disaster. If you’re from the UK, where people have recently been up in arms about having to pay 5p for a plastic bag at the supermarket, I’d like to think this really puts things into perspective.

You will have to use agile mechs to blast through “gore-filled levels” and blast apart hives of “grotesque” enemies. These enemies will have powerful weapons of their own, though, so expect to have your skills pushed to the limit. To keep on fighting the good fight, you will be able to upgrade your mech and new weapon systems, as well as use something called a Tactical Combat Frame to gain intel and solve puzzles.

Another interesting fact is that the studio have chosen real-life locations in Manchester, and then re-imagined them in a post-apocalyptic setting. And, was it just me, or did I hear you sigh when ‘horror’ and ‘action’ were used in the same sentence? Don’t worry, in addition to “being a tribute to Japanese mecha culture, Beyond Flesh and Blood aims to fully explore its narrative themes and enrich the shooter experience.” It’s definitely not all horror, but there’s nothing wrong with occasionally breaking up the constant tension and fear of horror gaming with some gory action.

If you agree – which you should, because I wrote everything so eloquently – you can find everything you need to know on Steam, Facebook and Twitter.

Masochisia - Review

I have a list of horror games that I want to play (and write about), as any good horror gamer should. Right at the top of this list was Masochisia, so I leapt at the chance of reviewing it for IGM. At a glance, I was captured by the style of Jon Oldblood’s psychological horror, but after looking a little deeper, I saw that the game had so much more to offer than just its unique visuals.

Masochisia is about a boy (or rather, young adult) known as Hamilton, who experiences hallucinations of both the visual and auditory kind. It is through these hallucinations that he realizes he will one day become a psychopath. Whether he is able to use this knowledge to change, however, is a different thing entirely. A gruesome thing, in fact, reminiscent of the graphic horrors of Neverending Nightmares and Fran Bow, which featured similar focuses on mental illnesses and abuse. Fair warning: Further down the page, Hamilton's mother is going to drop the C-bomb in one of Masochisia's images. Apologies if this offends you in any way, but if it does, this game is probably not for you... offensive language is the least of Hamilton's worries.

This journey into the depravities of the mind is taken by scrolling horizontally through a world that immediately sets the tone. Approximately 30 seconds into the game, I clicked to open a door, and on the other side of that door I was shown a vision that had me jumping back from the screen in horror. Consider me officially on edge. Masochisia doesn't create fear using jump-scares often, though it does use them well when the time calls for it. Rather, the game creates constant tension through its 2D environments, featuring portraits with the eyes scratched out, bloody handprints and scribbles, and impressively jarring sound effects each time an interaction is made.

Adding to this tension is the fact that you can only see parts of each scene you click into, and anything could be hiding just outside your field of vision. Only by navigating slowly across the screen will you find out whether someone, or something, has joined you in the area. And, no matter who they may be, I can guarantee that each will be as distinctive as the last, with their own strange style, creepy conversations, and obscene objective for Hamilton to carry out.

Fortunately, these objectives, normally quite cryptic but easily understood and solved, keep the narrative moving quite smoothly. I was slightly worried that I would become frustrated with Masochisia’s puzzles, for no reason other than the fact that I am impatient and simple, but they are used as a method of moving the narrative forward, which is the key focus of the game. In doing so, you get to follow Hamilton on his journey to becoming the mentally unstable murderer that we all know and…well, just know. It is a tale that probably won’t be for everyone, as it looks into the reasoning behind the psyche of a killer, with a foot set firmly in the disturbing realities of strict, religious parents, domestic abuse, and an inability to change the fate that others seem to have set for you.

Actually, this leads into one of my problems with an otherwise strong experience. There isn’t all that much choice, or at least my choices didn’t feel that open. For example, I tried to keep Hamilton as "sane" as I possibly could, denying my love of hurting others and questioning rather than giving in wherever possible. However, at certain points it seemed that the less slice-and-dice passionate options were greyed out, and I had to agree to act out the gruesome desires of whomever I was conversing with. Having said that, I’m aware that this may actually be a sign that mental illnesses are not simply a "choice," in which case the game makes strong cases for both sides of the nature-vs-nurture debate.

Another downside I experienced may have come from the genre itself, rather than being specific to Masochisia. I found that I had to do a lot of backtracking, and no matter how nice the backgrounds look, and how great things sound, I felt like I just couldn’t scroll fast enough through these areas. As I said, this could be a personal critique that won’t apply to everyone. If point-and-click is your go-to gaming genre, you’ll probably be used to it, but personally, I knew where I needed to be, and I just wanted to be there already.

Nevertheless, Masochisia is a beautifully twisted point-and-click adventure into the psyche of a very disturbed young man, and it creates its atmosphere using a mixture of things you don’t see, and things you wished you had never seen. Though I sometimes felt a little impatient scrolling through environments that I’d scrolled through before, and there isn’t quite as much choice as I first thought, Oldblood’s game cuts its way into the mind-bending group of horrors I’ve enjoyed recently. If you’re in the mood to follow a character’s journey into homicidal madness, Masochisia could be the game for you, and you can find it for $7.99 USD on Steam, or get in touch with the Oldblood on Twitter. Just make sure you're ready to explore some unsettling themes and visuals, before you follow Hamilton into the darkness.

Pros

• Eye-catching style really shows off the atmospheric horror
• Narrative is a surreal joy to explore
• Just the right length for such an intense experience

Cons

• Occasionally repetitive to backtrack through the world
• Didn’t experience as much choice as expected

Getting déjà vu right now? That may be because you read this on IGM, where my article was first featured! Check IGM out for all the latest on indie games, and make sure to peek in on our Patreon, where patrons can get each issue of the magazine for only $2.