Developer: earrgames | Released: 2015 | Genre: Adventure, Horror

It took me a shade under 1½ hours to reach the first ending of this one.

It was a first person horror adventure game with exploration and puzzles. As you can see in the screenshot, the graphics were very lo-res and sparse, but to make up for that it was incredibly atmospheric. The scary ambient background sounds and the dark corridors did a splendid job at that.

Another positive surprise was that jump scares were actually very minimal. The developer relied mostly on the atmosphere and the puzzles, which was a sensible choice. However, not all was awesome. Too much time was spent checking locked doors ad infinitum. A visual hint there would have been nice.

Apart from exploring and finding tablets with info, or keys and cards to open locked doors, there were a few puzzles too. A safe in the beginning had a 3×3 slider puzzle I had to solve using a riddle. The inventory could even combine two items, which actually felt a bit much for such a simple looking game.

A surprisingly exhaustive puzzle, the one that took up most of the playing time, was flipping tiles on a wall table using buttons to change the layout of a maze. Connecting the corridors to go from top to bottom was only part of this puzzle. I had to connect to obscure dead ends too in order to find an item I needed elsewhere. Good thing a tip on another wall mentioned this, or I would have been stuck.

I guess the developer knew it was a bit of a stretch and needed a solid hint.

I finally left the hospital and entered the second floor of an apartment complex where I had to get an elevator going. This led to a basement parking where I was handed both my ass and a bad ending – the first of five. The title screen had an overview of the five endings available, showing that I had unlocked one.

Had this been 15-20 years ago, I would have been all over getting all endings. Luckily I’m a bit more casual about this today. Besides, there’s still a lot of other games in my Steam backlog to check out.

Developer: Giant Squid | Released: 2016 | Genre: Adventure, Underwater

Completed this one yesterday. It was short – just shy of two hours.

It was a marvelous underwater diving adventure, swimming among fish, whales, squids, jellyfish – all the ocean can offer, and lots of it. I was often more or less engulfed in an explosion of color and life. It was also very easy. If it didn’t happen 99% underwater, many might call it a walking simulator.

Apart from exploring the oceanic areas, I could free small bots that could later help me remove an organic net to a passage. I could click on ocean floor pools to free a specific species, or collect shells. Even meditate on a statue. The only action marginally resembling using my brain was that some areas needed me to use two gadgets to open a door. Typically spinning chains attached to each side.

Sometimes I could also hang onto a larger creature for a bit of speed (usually wasn’t much of an advantage) or hit schools of fish in the flow of a tunnel. These tunnels popped up between areas from time to time.

One thing that surprised me a little was that it actually had a shred of a story and purpose. It wasn’t just an ocean floor simulator. I found portals leading to a ghost temple where offering a light sphere grew a coral stalk and opened a door, I started encountering mechanical triangle structures, and I even befriended a big white shark. It was all subtle and fit in well with the rest of the game.

Except perhaps the exploding triangle mines. I could have done without those.

Apart from the nature of our hero – which I won’t spoil here – probably the biggest surprise in the entire game was that I could get up and walk around in temples toward the end of the game. Not much – typically just to activate something and then back into the water. But still. Didn’t expect that one.

The music was absolutely flawless. Symphonic and often with choirs. Sometimes the strings reminded me of old Tomb Raider games, at other times I thought of the adventurous encounters in The Abyss.

I completed it using a mouse and keyboard. Sometimes I fumbled up and down, but otherwise it was fine.