Yuha’s Nightmares
Yuha’s Nightmares
This is a simulation game about the nightmares that our main character Yuha suffers from. The primary goal of the player is to explore the surrealistic world that is full of strange things and unexpected events. The deeper part of Yua’s consciousness is depicted through the «flip side» of the 3d world. You will frequently get stuck in textures, see through mesh and wander around at every level in «inappropriate» places. The glitches in the game are accordingly integrated to make for an intense and exciting gameplay experience. «Yuha’s Nightmares» is a balanced combination of thriller, drama and comedy.
Who is Yuha?
Yuha is the virtual counterpart of the game developer Yuliya Kozhemyako. Yuha creates games, takes part in modern art exhibitions and feminist movements but does have some bad habits. Her body and form sometimes look like a polygon mesh and change textures.
Episode one: The Catastrophe
In this episode, Yuha is in a hurry to collect all her belongings so as to leave her crumbling house. Perhaps, her house is not the only thing getting destroyed, but rather the whole world? Even so what if there is a safe and secure place somewhere out there?
Read More: Best Walking Simulator Indie Games.
Manalith
Manalith has set clear goals on what it is trying to do, and it does it well. The game focuses on exploring beautiful scenery and finding hidden locations with collectables. A very chill 4.5 hours of wandering.
There are a lot of collectables that can start to feel grindy near the end, if you have randomly wandered around like I may have. That being said, I appreciated the process by which getting one collectable activated part of the environment to allow you to get to a new area. There is a sensory ability, that when upgraded allows you to find all items, but you still have to figure out how to get to them.
– Real player with 4.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best Walking Simulator Adventure Games.
This is a very relaxing game and a welcome change from the multiplayer stress of other games. Trippy visuals and inviting atmosphere are welcome as well.
– Real player with 0.6 hrs in game
Playhear : Square Paper City
How an Electronic Music Album would sound and look if it was a Video Game?
Welcome to a new way to listen to music with this first opus of Playhear, a series of musical pieces made into games!
Surreal City
Settled in a weird and minimalistic place, Square Paper City is a Musical Walking Simulator with mazes, some puzzles and a bouncy and dynamic world.
A new way to play a music album
This interactive experience will make you live and feel a music LP as something new: semi-procedural, designed according to the game and the levels, moving and modulating according to your actions. The simplest inputs have dramatic consequences over your musical experience.
There’s also rhythmic totems to test your rhythm abilities, some shooting skills to help you find your way in the monochromatic mazes, some light Parkour, and other fancy mechanics.
Made with experimentations in mind
I made this game in solo, following my emotions and knowledge, testing visual technologies and interactive audio systems to provide a psychedelic but dynamic and fun walking game in a living painting!
I have also been working closely with some audio plugin developers as a tester and sound designer.
This game is a tribute to them (Unfiltered Audio, Rhizomatic, UVI, Bitwig, Sugar Bytes…) and to experimenters.
Finally, here’s the
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Push the Boundaries of the Way we Play/Listen to Music: a technical and artistic approach to interactive music
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Automatic Writing and Serendipity: a surreal way of composing the story and developing the game content with serendipity.
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Minimalistic Systems and UI: more immersion for the player. No complexity, immediate onboarding.
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Synaesthesia: attempt to make a world that lives according to music and visual connections.
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Focus on Experimental Art and Trippy Mood: I wish to experiment on both the technical art and the interactive music system in order to push the boundaries of abstract and artistic games.
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Diversity in electronic music genres: as I always done in my musical career
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This Game is an Instrument as Much as it is an Art Piece: give the opportunity to the player to play the game as an album or live show during a party or whatever.
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Use a Limited Range of Instruments: especially those that I’m testing for audio developers friends and a few others that I really need for the overall quality of the music
A game made by Tomavatars
The Space Between
I am not fond of games that have me blundering around in the dark. This causes nausea because you are visually disoriented. Also, the ending was just… nothing? OK you are done now, here are 2 chairs? Sorry but this was just not great. :(
– Real player with 12.8 hrs in game
I have a soft spot for psychological games with a retro aesthetic, the weirder they are, the more I enjoy them. You can complete the game in 40 minutes which is admittedly short considering the slow text, but in the end, I care more about my overall impression of the narrative. Without spoiling anything, you can tell from the trailer that the game focuses on intimacy issues, paranoia, and anxiety - which it does pretty well. While I enjoyed the story and the psychedelic visuals, the actual dialogue could use some polish; with the game like this I think you could avoid saying too much, and it will still have the same effect. I wish the text would not lock you into the conversation the entire time, you could just let the player walk around and read, not to mention that the camera tends to lock in the wrong place anyway. It’s not a horror game aside from one little jump scare, it’s more about the atmosphere and creating that isolation through an unsettling environment. I am not always a fan of dark shading and tiny rooms, but within the context of the narrative that tries to convey that feeling of being alone, I think the claustrophobic locations work very well.
– Real player with 3.0 hrs in game
Promesa
Promesa is a work of art and art can be divisive. I would even go as far as to say that this is not a videogame in a classic sense. It’s more of an experience and a very slow one at that. During this experience I had the feeling of visiting scenes of memories and dreams from someone else. These scenes often felt very much lifelike thanks to the stunning environments but at the same time there was always something “off”. A strange feeling and sensation, just like in a real dream. Some environments even felt familiar to me. Above all else, this feels like a very personal experience that can be compared to a painting. The artstyle in Promesa is truly stunning and I enjoyed the scenery and accoustic environment very much.
– Real player with 7.5 hrs in game
I completed a play-through of Promesa and I have no idea what just happened. I spent about 40 minutes walking forward at a generally slow pace through a series of doors and scenes. Some are created with great detail, while others are very impressionistic. There was an occasional bit of stream-of-consciousness narrative about growing old and looking back. And, in the background, an interesting sound track of instrumentals and ambient noise.
As an artistic piece, it is interesting and certainly combines various styles and textures (in terms of sights and sounds). But, as art goes, some ‘get it’ and others do not. I fall into the latter category, as I did not come away with any meaningful emotional reaction or any sense of cohesive threads within the game.
– Real player with 3.2 hrs in game
Titan Chaser
A mechanically rough Early Access with a great concept and surreal mood about finding and rescuing giant titans roaming the land using all kinds of bright lights.
Your only two companions are a run down, beige coloured Chrysler K platform car that’s held together by glue, droplets of constant fog and the sheer enthusiasm of the main protagonist and a mysterious, freakishly tall hotel manager named Jasper. He’s also your main contact when your car decides to bunny hop down a hill and gets stuck on the train tracks or you decide to test how far into the water you can drive.
– Real player with 4.8 hrs in game
This modestly priced Early Access walking sim has some great ideas at its core and even though I am not huge on buying in before the product is complete, I feel like I have already got my money’s worth and could quite happily recommend this to a walking sim fan who wants something a little bit different.
PROS
- unexpected. You can almost count the versions of a walking sim on 1 or maybe 2 hands. Angsty teen, space station, psychological horror, but never have I played a walking sim where I basically have to drive around and shoo-away monsters.
– Real player with 4.3 hrs in game
Anamorphine
Experienced on Windows Mixed Reality, Samsung Odyssey+
VR Review Only. You can view my full review here: https://youtu.be/0pFWewYJlpA
Although VR support was taken off the store page by the developer, I can confirm that as of today (January 2, 2020) that VR still works fine. However, I would warn anyone to not buy this for the VR experience in the future as who knows when and if the VR will stop functioning properly without official support. There is full locomotion with smooth turning or teleportation. Your motion controllers are used as a gamepad (you might as well use your gamepad).
– Real player with 2.3 hrs in game
Anamorphine breaks new ground in so many ways that it’s hard not to recommend it to anyone who likes alternative and experimental games.
You progress through the story fluidly without any loading, cut or jump: instead, there are seamless transition across time and space that put you in a dreamlike feeling of not knowing how you got to where you are, nor how to leave. It is beautiful and anxiogenic at once, and it reminds me of the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in that regard – that’s definitely a compliment.
– Real player with 1.9 hrs in game
Deep Abyss
Deep Abyss is composed of independent chapters, connected as one structure.
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It has a unique Control that seems unfamiliar yet simple to get used to.
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Explore the deep sea and space yourself as a diver. Swim through strange yet beautiful backgrounds and music. It will give you a new gaming experience that you have not felt in other games.
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The story progresses in the form of poetry rather than a linear composition. It is a game resembling a small painting where you can achieve poetic and artistic sensibility.
NIGHTSLINK
This can either be a simplistic, moody walking simulator or a maddening descent into esoteric analysis.
You’re thrust into a hallway. You could almost feel P.T. vibes if not for the low-poly environment. There are no real jumpscares though, just a foreboding desolation. You deliver tapes by knocking on specific doors. What are on these tapes? Why are people afraid to leave their apartments? Why is the world a Silent Hill-like version of Eraserhead’s industrial wasteland? You, probably, will not find an answer to this. There is a lore, but it’s sparse. Everything is built around that feeling of hopelessness and the confusing hints at something bigger going on. The small dialogues paint a picture of a world full of derealization, cosmic horror, and some corporate espionage. It seems easily taken in, but then you ask why you passed up the man usually found smoking in the hallway when you drove on an empty street. You make tapes for the residents and wonder what seemingly mind-altering messages or sounds are on them. Why are things so deafeningly quiet, besides the buzzing behind you?
– Real player with 6.1 hrs in game
You’re basically a deliveryman in a post-apocalyptic and eerily quiet world in NIGHTSLINK. Not much context needed because of this game’s brevity and about 30 minutes of gameplay if you play through it twice. As someone who regularly has surreal dreams, and those bordering on nightmares are only so because of this impossible feeling of intense anxiety and dread. NIGHTSLINK is a little like that; a lot of uncertainty and a sprinkling of dread, and lovecraftian horror.
I think NIGHTSLINK’s strength is prevalent in its sound design, because some parts of it genuinely live up to the phrase “piercing silence”. Quite literally. And because I’m a sucker for retro/PSx styles in modern indie games, I have to praise that too. Just the right amount of unsettling and darkness, and the sound design helps sell the disconcerting atmosphere. I won’t try to pretend there’s any story, or at least that there’s any need to try and decipher the hypothetical story to make this game “better”, I think it’s good as-is and the lack of context just makes it all the more harrowing. Don’t get me wrong though, it does a terrific job hinting at its worldbuilding, which I absolutely love.
– Real player with 1.4 hrs in game
Self-Checkout Unlimited
First of all SCU made me feel a bit nostalgic–the way your steps sound on different surfaces and in different areas, dim lights of the first part, vast, empty building you can explore–all of that reminded me of one of the old stealth series that I still keep playable on my PC. SCU feels like something completely new and very familiar at the same time. Visuals, music and, especially, sounds create overall atmosphere of the game that is well integrated with its plot.
Game play is also done well-though plot is linear in general, you’re able to choose your own pace and you don’t have to run around the whole area looking for triggers or items you need without any clues.
– Real player with 11.6 hrs in game
You know, all I ever play is Dota2 and visual novels. So, I’d never try Self-Checkout Unlimited if this game weren’t made by my fav devs. They created nice stories and then suddenly changed the genre, I just had to give it a try.
At first, I was deeply convinced it’s not my thing. It was so annoying not to know what to do, where to go. I play games mainly to relax, to enjoy reading in foreign for me English language. But here… Mainly, it’s a walking simulator. There’re some choices tho and you can choose in the settings if the voices gonna have the subtitles. So it WAS kind of reading xD
– Real player with 4.4 hrs in game