Did anybody play The Consuming Shadow? I've been playing it recently and I think it's pretty cool. Definitely a mixed experience though.
I think it really nails the mood. It's tense and atmospheric, even after 20 hours of play. The monsters are creepy, and the silhouette aesthetic was a good choice, and those little music cues when you find something in a room are effective too. The game also really communicates the tone of being on a last ditch mission with little hope of success. The way you start in your car with a bunch of stuff hastily thrown into the passenger seat, with a post it note stuck to the mirror. The way you keep in contact through hurried texts while driving. I don't think I've ever played a game with a tone quite like this. It's oppressive, bleak, and mysterious, while having a ragtag underground hero feel. It's like X-files kinda. Everyone said you were crazy to waste your time researching the supernatural and the occult, but here you are, facing off against the unknowable cosmic forces from beyond the veil. Oh, and piecing together which of the gods are invading is a fun little puzzle too. I also really like the title screen.
Okay, so that's what works, here's what doesn't work so well. The combat is very clunky, which would be okay, it's obviously supposed to be more strategy than action, but it just doesn't really work. Guns seem underpowered, which sucks because ammo is severely limited. I found the best strategy was just to run around spamming melee, because shooting was slower, seemed to do less dps, and didn't even really keep you out of reach of the monsters. The restrictive ammo limit was a good idea, but the random ammo drops from trashcans or whatever should not be wasted if you have a full clip. You only get six shots per ammo type, monsters take 2+ shots, you need those random drops if you aren't going to spend 80% of the dungeon slapping monsters with your pistol. They should stay where you found them so you can attempt to retrieve them later. More time needed to be spent on the player character animations too. They are incredibly stiff, and a bit more animation would have increased the aesthetics of the game by a large amount.
Beyond the combat, there's the fact that it felt like none of my choices mattered. You can pick locks, with a % chance of breaking the pick, but a key ring that opens all doors is guaranteed to drop once per dungeon, and I'm gonna be exploring everywhere for clues anyway so what's the point. Time management isn't really an issue on the most part because dungeons take almost no time at all, and everything else is random. If I failed a side mission because of time it was either because I didn't care or because it just wasn't possible for me to complete it in time, through no fault of my own. Either the town was too far away, or I didn't randomly get the required item in time or at all. Most of the equip items were useless and the spells annihilated your sanity for not much benefit and were randomly acquired anyway. Sanity was constantly draining with no way to really restore it. I felt like there just wasn't a way to keep your sanity up apart from drugs(I'm still not entirely clear on how those work), which meant that you were constantly fighting to not click "kill yourself" even when you have 37/50 sanity. Oh yeah, and it just needed... more stuff. There isn't a whole lot to see in the game, and you'll have seen/read most of it after a couple hours of play.
The game is a bit easy too. Once I figured out the strats of running by most enemies sanity be darned, and pistol whipping whenever I felt like it, I never died. The god puzzle is far too simple, and you only need a few good clues to solve it(and you have a 1/5 guessing chance right out of the gate) which is a shame because it might have been a lot of fun if it wasn't so straightforward. I always seemed to have enough money, because buying ammo was pointless, and you can't really shop around because of the time limit.
Anyway, this is pretty long now, and pretty rambly so I'm gonna wrap up. I think there was the potential to have a really amazing game here. Yahtzee struck on a really neat idea here, It just needed more to bring it all together. More options, more writing, more animations, more development, more polish. It was still good though, I mean, I think I played it for like 25 hours before I was finished with it.
I think it really nails the mood. It's tense and atmospheric, even after 20 hours of play. The monsters are creepy, and the silhouette aesthetic was a good choice, and those little music cues when you find something in a room are effective too. The game also really communicates the tone of being on a last ditch mission with little hope of success. The way you start in your car with a bunch of stuff hastily thrown into the passenger seat, with a post it note stuck to the mirror. The way you keep in contact through hurried texts while driving. I don't think I've ever played a game with a tone quite like this. It's oppressive, bleak, and mysterious, while having a ragtag underground hero feel. It's like X-files kinda. Everyone said you were crazy to waste your time researching the supernatural and the occult, but here you are, facing off against the unknowable cosmic forces from beyond the veil. Oh, and piecing together which of the gods are invading is a fun little puzzle too. I also really like the title screen.
Okay, so that's what works, here's what doesn't work so well. The combat is very clunky, which would be okay, it's obviously supposed to be more strategy than action, but it just doesn't really work. Guns seem underpowered, which sucks because ammo is severely limited. I found the best strategy was just to run around spamming melee, because shooting was slower, seemed to do less dps, and didn't even really keep you out of reach of the monsters. The restrictive ammo limit was a good idea, but the random ammo drops from trashcans or whatever should not be wasted if you have a full clip. You only get six shots per ammo type, monsters take 2+ shots, you need those random drops if you aren't going to spend 80% of the dungeon slapping monsters with your pistol. They should stay where you found them so you can attempt to retrieve them later. More time needed to be spent on the player character animations too. They are incredibly stiff, and a bit more animation would have increased the aesthetics of the game by a large amount.
Beyond the combat, there's the fact that it felt like none of my choices mattered. You can pick locks, with a % chance of breaking the pick, but a key ring that opens all doors is guaranteed to drop once per dungeon, and I'm gonna be exploring everywhere for clues anyway so what's the point. Time management isn't really an issue on the most part because dungeons take almost no time at all, and everything else is random. If I failed a side mission because of time it was either because I didn't care or because it just wasn't possible for me to complete it in time, through no fault of my own. Either the town was too far away, or I didn't randomly get the required item in time or at all. Most of the equip items were useless and the spells annihilated your sanity for not much benefit and were randomly acquired anyway. Sanity was constantly draining with no way to really restore it. I felt like there just wasn't a way to keep your sanity up apart from drugs(I'm still not entirely clear on how those work), which meant that you were constantly fighting to not click "kill yourself" even when you have 37/50 sanity. Oh yeah, and it just needed... more stuff. There isn't a whole lot to see in the game, and you'll have seen/read most of it after a couple hours of play.
The game is a bit easy too. Once I figured out the strats of running by most enemies sanity be darned, and pistol whipping whenever I felt like it, I never died. The god puzzle is far too simple, and you only need a few good clues to solve it(and you have a 1/5 guessing chance right out of the gate) which is a shame because it might have been a lot of fun if it wasn't so straightforward. I always seemed to have enough money, because buying ammo was pointless, and you can't really shop around because of the time limit.
Anyway, this is pretty long now, and pretty rambly so I'm gonna wrap up. I think there was the potential to have a really amazing game here. Yahtzee struck on a really neat idea here, It just needed more to bring it all together. More options, more writing, more animations, more development, more polish. It was still good though, I mean, I think I played it for like 25 hours before I was finished with it.