The Guilt and the Shadow
So, this is yet another gloomy indie game about psychological disorders.
There’s little to say about this one. In its own genre it’s probably OK. The visuals are stylish and the sound design is quite awesome.
But the story doesn’t really catch your attention. The monologues and occasional dialogues are quite unnatural. And the gameplay part just plainly sucks. You walk slowly, you need to backtrack the levels all the time, it’s surprisingly hard to find a proper spot to start climbing a ladder. So, all in all, as a game this thing kind of fails.
– Real player with 8.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best Hand-drawn Dark Fantasy Games.
An emotional experience about the torments of a man plagued by the “guilt” of his mother’s suicide (“shadow”).
Set in a black and white pencil drawn world, the player guides the mentally ill protagonist through a succession of dreams/nightmares.
To advance in the game, we have to solve simple puzzles to unblock passageways or unlock memories.
The pace is slow, giving the time to the player to immerse itself in the dark atmosphere of the game. And the game can be finished in one setting, which I would recommend in order to not lose the connection to the story.
– Real player with 5.3 hrs in game
恶灵退散 Go Back to Hell
the art style is cool and the sound track slaps but this is just an eye spy game for anyone thats confused by the description like i was, theres no instructions or dialog your just looking for the weird things in each image with no other context. so ya if plot is what your looking for and not just an ideal thing this isnt it but its nice none the less 3
– Real player with 2.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Hand-drawn Psychological Horror Games.
nightmAR Protocol
Challenging, spooky, intense, & tons of fun is what comes to mind whilst playing through nightmAR Protocol. Job well done by all the creators - artwork, game play & music were all a knockout. DOPE.
– Real player with 2.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best Hand-drawn Horror Games.
My review of nightmAR Protocol
❤ Audience ❤
☐ Beginners
☐ Casual player
☑ Normal player
☐ Expert
🏆 Achievements 🏆
☑ Just a few (7)
☐ A dozen
☐ Many many
☼ Graphics ☼
☐ Bad
☐ All right
☐ Good
☐ Nice
☑ Fantastic
☑ Handmade
♬ Music ♬
☐ Bad
☐ All right
☐ Good
☐ Nice
☑ Fantastic
☠ Difficulty ☠
☐ Simple
☐ Average
☑ Easy to learn / difficult to master
☐ Difficult
☐ Injustice
§ Bugs §
☐ Bugs destroy the game
☐ Lots of bugs
☐ Some bugs
☐ You can use it for Speedrun
☑ Nothing has occurred
☯ History ☯
– Real player with 2.1 hrs in game
Skaramazuzu
Somewhere between life and death, there is a world made up of hopeful dreams and broken shadows. Souls may sometimes find themselves lured into this strange world to be tested. Examined to find out where they are worthy of moving on to.
Zuzu - A lost Soul
Skaramazuzu is an atmospheric 2D slow-paced, story-driven adventure, taking place in a moody, solemn and mysterious landscape. The protagonist Zuzu, a joyful and innocent soul without any memory, has been summoned by a mysterious entity called Master to discover the meaning of its existence. Through this bizarre journey, Zuzu will meet some strange and capricious personalities who offer to help.
Game Features
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A classic story-driven 2D Adventure, crafted with the appropriate modern and fresh approach.
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Explore over 20 distinct interconnected locations of a strange and dark world.
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Highly-tuned casual 2D controls. Control Skaramazuzu and interact with the characters and the world with minimal effort.
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Full support for keyboards and controllers! Play and enjoy the game with your favorite configuration.
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Discover the story of Skaramazuzu and Master, a unique duo of a lost soul and a mysterious entity.
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Collect and give items with an easy-to-use inventory system.
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A vast collection of creepy and cute characters, all brought to life with traditional 2D frame-by-frame animation.
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Meet and interact with over 20 unique surreal characters and unlock their individual stories.
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Graphic Assets and animation frames with resolution up to 2,5K
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Unique sound effects for every interactive element.
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A peculiar sound system of voice emotes and expressions for every character.
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A dark, atmospheric original score accompanies the players on their journey.
The void
The world of Skaramazuzu, has a unique aesthetic of a black and white shadow puppet world, set among the ruins of ancient gothic-like structures, while all the while engulfed in a moody and subdued pale ghost light. Every part of this strange landscape offers something new for you to discover. You will encounter almost every location to the unique backgrounds and soundscapes that will enchant you with their sombre and dreamlike aesthetic from the interesting yet mysterious characters. Skaramazuzu is a slow-paced, story-driven adventure game with a cute, creepy, moody and strange feeling.
A collection of surreal and strange personalities
Many strange and whimsical characters are waiting to be discovered by Zuzu on this adventure. Every character will be willing to listen and help Zuzu and ask for something in return. Some of these strange personalities might turn out to be key figures in Zuzu’s little peculiar adventure. By accepting to help these newfound friends, Zuzu will not only learn a little about each one of them but will eventually learn the truth about this strange world.
There Is No Light
After a global catastrophe, the remains of human civilization built a new religious society among the ruins of the desolated underground. They have forgotten the light of the sun and now are blindly following the New God — The Great Hand. Once every few years, The Hand comes down to the people of the Central Station and takes away the chosen newborns to the world hidden behind the gates of the Sanctuary. The Hero embarks on a dangerous journey through this hostile world to find a way to open the gates and bring his child back.
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Atmospheric pixel art world
A vast, detailed and beautiful pixel art world to explore.
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Unique combat system
Adjust your fight style for every foe and boss by switching between 4 main weapons on the go.
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Thrilling and emotional story
A deep and touching 30-hour long storyline about a family, war and redemption awaits you.
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70+ Types of enemies and bosses
Be prepared to slaughter hundreds of dreadful monsters and bosses!
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1000+ Dialogues and Karma system
Non-linear narrative helps to build a branching story with meaningful choices that will impact the world according to the player’s decisions.
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Useful skills to upgrade your weapons
A massive skill tree for every weapon allows you to build your own fighting style.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1132980/There_Is_No_Light/
Almost My Floor
Вполне добротный квест! Из плюсов сразу хотелось бы отметить хорошую графику. Нарисовано прям явно с душой. Анимации конечно не сильная сторона этой игры, но вполне позволяют без проблем погрузиться в сюжет. Также хотел отметить атмосферу, игра цепляет своей тайной и до конца не отпускает. Сюжет вполне неплох, пара неожиданных твистов присутсвует. Есть пара не до конца понятных моментов, но видимо расскажут в длс или даже во второй части.
Пазлы очень клевые, сильно голову не напрягают, достаточно интересные и все уникальные.
– Real player with 24.1 hrs in game
I have some issues with how the game handles the narrative and the atmosphere, but let me start with the positives. The first thing I noticed is the hotspot indicator, double-tap for running, and a flexible save system, so at least it has that going for it. I had a few random glitches here and there, but in general, it feels like the developer put a decent amount of work into the UI. While you play through the story, you can choose to save or kill certain characters, so it has a good reason to replay it. It’s not very long, maybe 2 to 3 hours, but you can hunt for some achievements as well. I thought the game was animated really well, the only thing that I don’t like is that all the monsters are just too cute ;0. Now that brings me to some of the problems with the atmosphere, I think the mood in the game is all over the place, and for the entire playthrough, I was not sure what direction the devs tried to take - is it an intentionally funny game, or is it a horror game that fails to be one (and to me, it felt like both). Perhaps the writer just didn’t convey the mood to me that he wanted, and because of that, I was not entirely sure how to feel.
– Real player with 5.5 hrs in game
End of Realms
It is an old school RPG where the player continually decides between two to three locations where the main character should go to. At each location certain or uncertain events take place. The narrative itself is set in stone when certain events are triggered or certain conditions are met at various locations. The game is heavy on combat and randomness.
The game works with three main stats (fortitude, defense and magic) that are purely dependent on gear and acquired passive skills. Passive and active skills can be found randomly or are unlocked when certain not foretold events are triggered. As a new player it can be a bit difficult to understand these mechanics which have not been disclosed. Usually there is some sort of logic in it. If for example you want to wear heavier armor, you need passive armor skills. It then could be worth it to try to collect armor and wear as heavy defensive armor as possible to boost such stats. If you would like to unlock more mage skills or play as a rogue, then it can perhaps be worth it to experiment more with those skills in the hope of unlocking more of those. There is significant experimentation required to unlock a lot of skills and thus enable various viable builds. It is unlikely that you’ll unlock all the skills, find all of the rarest equipment or all of the crafting recipes on a single playthrough.
– Real player with 24.8 hrs in game
A fantastic game!!!!!!
Easy to learn - harder to finish I guess.
I’m running it in a window 2560 x 1440 using Lossless Scaling - a program you can find in the Steam Shop.
– Real player with 4.6 hrs in game
Mundaun
Mundaun is really good. It’s very refreshing to play a horror game set elsewhere than an asylum, a space station or a suburban house, there’s way too few games taking place in Switzerland. The game looks unique and I’m in awe just thinking how many graphite drawings it took and there’s quite a few striking setpieces I still think about to this day. The atmosphere is thick and eerie, you know something’s not right but can’t quite put your finger on it.
The characters are great, huge love for a certain evil one who oozes darkness. The romansh voice acting adds so much to the sense of mystery and it’s not like you’d play games in romansh everyday. The story is pretty straightforward and feels like a folktale you’d tell just before bedtime, a story the whole town would know.
– Real player with 24.4 hrs in game
Sometimes it only takes one picture to see that the game will be - at the very least - interesting. I saw the first picture of Mundaun on an indie website something like two years ago, and after that was patiently waiting for release. I was expecting another tiny 2-3-hour horror game - only this time with actual style and atmosphere.
What I didn’t expect was was ten hours of high production values all across the board.
- A culturally informed take on the classical European ‘deal with the Devil’ scenario.
– Real player with 9.9 hrs in game
Plaguepunk Justice
Great mix of roguelike and squad based strategy. Unique setting and mechanics for a zombie game. Love the art style and the music is very enjoyable and gives a nice tone. Very polished with no crashes or issues so far. Has that addictive “one more turn/mission”. Glad I found this hidden gem.
– Real player with 10.5 hrs in game
recently got this game on sale, got completely hooked within the first three missions
the style, dialogue, combat, and crafting system are all top notch, 10/10
some of the things that hold the game back in my eyes is the movement, often times passing through another person (or vice versa) can mess up my placement, but to be fair thats just a learning curve
the combat enforces high mobility because of the healing combat, and i think thats really interesting. It makes positioning, resource management, exploration, and map awareness very important. Also requires a little bit of tracking which “patients” you have already treated, etc
– Real player with 8.5 hrs in game
Soul Catcher
It’s nice to play a game that doesn’t hand everything to you on a plate. In an age of ultra-high budget productions I’m reminded that sometimes simplicity can produce a compelling game. Some talented individuals with a story to tell, maybe a few puzzles and jump scares along the way make a surprisingly compelling game. Because of the whole horror retro vibe of the game this is definitely one to play with headphones. I have to admit that I took a while to complete this, probably because I’m not that great at puzzle games. I have to admit there were periods of frustration when I was stuck on a few puzzles but to me that makes it all the sweeter when you finally figure it out. Don’t get me wrong, the game isn’t without its flaws. The low-res aesthetic certainly won’t appeal to everyone. Sometimes it feels like the difficulty of the puzzles can suddenly jump without much of a ramp up to them. I think an optional hint mode as an option within each puzzle could help. Checkpoints need to be more evenly spaced as I had to play for a good 30 minutes before I hit my first one. For what the game is, when it was floated on the steam store I thought it was a little expensive. But hey what are Steam sales for! All in all this game is a great reminder that you don’t necessarily need a multi-million pound budget and photo realistic graphics to make a compelling story that’s enjoyable (if a little scary) to play through. Now I just need to complete play throughs with all the other characters XD.
– Real player with 13.6 hrs in game
Yes, I’m aware of the ALL CAPS game this title is similar to.
Are there games out there like Rogue?
Yes, a lot. That is why “Rogue-like” is now a genre.
Am I going to make a federal case out of inspiration?
No, no I am not.
What I will do is say that this game is awesome. It sets up its own unsettling folklore-themed flavor, presented in classic retro-PC style, with some pretty clever puzzles. There are multiple characters, and multiple endings depending on what you do and/or the order you do things in.
– Real player with 5.4 hrs in game