Developer: The Deep End Games
Publisher: Feardemic
Rrp: £17.99 (Gog.com), £17.99 (Steam)
Released: 30th May 2017
Available on: Steam, Gog.com
Played Using: Mouse and Keyboard
Approximate game length: 10 Hours
Darkness has never held anything to fear for you, how can it when every day of your life has been spent within it? But this place, this place is different. The darkness almost feels… thicker, more menacing. Every sound feels like it travels further than it should and that something is paying attention. It feels like the house is listening, and nothing frightens you more.
[DISCLAIMER – IN THE INTEREST OF FULL DISCLOSURE THIS IS A GAME I BACKED ON KICKSTARTER AND RECEIVED CODE FOR AS A BACKER REWARD]
Fancy that, a survival horror game set in first person where you play as a character who is blind. Its hard to envisage how one would go about designing such a thing. As you can imagine using an intensely visual medium such a video games to portray blindness is quite the difficult task without resorting to just making the screen black. Thankfully there are some developers out there willing to take up the challenge. The way game handles the subject is by giving player character the ability to ‘see’ sound (similar to Marvel Comic’s Daredevil). Cassie Thornton is the name of our protagonist for this story, and Echo Bluff is the location. For years Cassie has had dreams, or perhaps nightmares is a better description, of the old house known as Echo Bluff. She feels drawn to it, to try and piece together why she keeps dreaming of it.
When you start the game you get to chose between two modes; Chatty Cassie (which is the recommended setting by the developers) or Silent Night. Chatty Cassie will have the protagonist speak a fair amount where as in Silent Night remains mostly quiet.
I played it on the Chatty Cassie mode, as the developers had originally intended it to be played. Honestly I don’t think she spoke that much, and what she had to say was generally either interesting or appropriate for the situation at the time.
Every step you make temporarily illuminates a small portion of the world, not enough to really navigate by though. If you want to see further ahead Cassie has to tap her cane [Space], the effect only lasts about ten seconds but its enough to see what you’re doing. Its not just your sounds that you can see though, any sound creates an image, dripping taps, leaking radiators etc. Bear in mind though that you aren’t alone in the house, and every sound you make runs the risk of attracting attention.
Being a survival horror game it has some of the things we have come to expect, the odd jump scare (although not that many) here, a quick puzzle to solve there
and all throughout are places to hide.
But from what are you hiding? Well, the game calls it ‘The Presence’ so I guess that’s what I’ll stick to as well.
So here’s the part where this becomes very interesting to me. You require sound to ‘see’ by, otherwise your just stumbling around in the dark. The Presence hunts through sound, so every noise you make attracts its attention. This forces the players to try and learn Echo Bluffs layout.
Cassie also has a ‘sixth sense’ that when used guides the player to the next objective. The manner in which it does it can be a bit jarring though, as it takes control of the camera and points it directly toward the next goal ‘as the crow lies’ so to speak. In a way that’s a good thing though as it forces the player to have to work out how to get to the goal rather than guide them step by step around the house.
As you play you find clues around the house. It seems that our dear Cassie is something of a psychic, any items you pick up will give you a glimpse of part of a story. However psychic powers are not enough, and Cassie has to rely on good old technology, specifically her phone and its apps, like its text to speech function… well its not like people wrote in braille just in case a blind person came through.
When the game wants you to see an event it takes control of the camera and drags your viewpoint to what it desires. Sadly this can cause some of the jump scares to lose their effectiveness because of the removal of control from the player (albeit temporary). There’s also a slight delay between the camera settling into position and the jump scare itself, which again lessens the impact.
This game can be very confusing, especially if you die. In the event of that happening you get sent back to the last checkpoint, but you keep all the progress you’ve performed so any items you’ve picked up remain in your
possession.
The thing that makes the game extra confusing is clearly not something that was by design. In most games if you perform an action that triggers an event, like a jump scare etc the event will happen once, unless you somehow reset your progress. But in Perception if you do certain actions again they’ll trigger the vent. This can cause the player some confusion because, in my case, you feel like it means you’ve not completed some kind of puzzle or sequence. Combine that with the sixth sense that points you directly at the next objective and you can start to feel frustrated that you’ve now traversed these rooms several times over.
For me I can that I’m quite happy with what The Deep End Games have created. That being said, I have to admit that this game was more of a mystery thriller than a survival horror to me. Perhaps I’ve become desensitised from playing too many horror games nut even the parts that could be considered horrific I found creepy more than anything.
Whether this is a worthwhile purchase or not depends on what you want out of the game, I got about five hours worth of engaging story and a satisfactory conclusion out of a premise that I was, at best, curious about.
If this appeals to you perhaps try;
Devil’s Tuning Fork
Slender the Arrival
Gone Home
