Apparatus: Exanimus

Ok i can only describe this game as its own category of game. its weird, spooky, you always except something to happen but no. Its pure "dread" ITS SO INTERESTING. the game has many secrets. which you may not get the first time you see... my tip is: get a notebook and write down EVERYTHING you see :) Its great!

Still have barely scratched the surface of possibility in this game and every time I went back to it I was like "well surely I must be nearing the end". I am nowhere near the end. What the ♥♥♥♥ is happening in this game. I'm lost and I'm scared. When the ♥♥♥♥ did I end up here. What the ♥♥♥♥ was that. Analog horror wishes it was this good at the metatextual.

[b]Do you know when to stop?[/b] Fantastic game. What I thought would be a neat way to spend an evening became nearly a week of obsession.

I don't know how I feel about this game but it certainly harkens back to older games that came up with their own ideas for how controls should work. Kinda like an old mysterious game you'd hear about on a forum.

An excellent remaster of a classic game!

Figglewatts has been busy making a very immersive walking sim with ARG elements set in a story that I can't seem to put down. Dirus Software is an ailing game studio on its last legs, right before the turn of the millenium, and Apparatus: Exanimus will prove to be their final entry to the art form. The connected website to Dirus Software is the core of the ARG elements, mainly giving important lore information as to what was happening in the studio during the game's development. I really like how the walking simulator 90s throwback here uses specific tank controls and strained movement options, because it helps crystallize a point where Dirus Software was developing this only for Half-Life to come out in November of 1998 and the amount of course correction it took to avoid being an also-ran in comparision. Your biggest threat in AE are these strange fungi strewn throughout the facility. You take radiation damage while within their AOE, which is represented by TV static overlaying your vision similar to how other games will use VHS static to alert the player of danger. Staying too long in this state takes one pip off of your health (represented as these red pustules in the top right corner) and you respawn at first aid stations when you die. Because of the aformentioned fungi and the fact that their damage is in a confined space, the slow movement in AE becomes a vital tool in your arsenal to stay alive - take your time, be careful, don't overstep into a fungi's radius or it'll cost you. The necessity of exploration to get anything done in this game provides the push and pull that makes this game so interesting - keep moving forward, but pace yourself. Most importantly, be on your guard...you're all alone in the facility - until you're not.

A fun trek though weird areas with some puzzles and platforming with its own storyline that you have to find yourself.

lots to see and explore here. a great love letter to an era of fun era of gaming without being overly derivative. the rigid control scheme has been frustrating at times but overall makes me focus and "get into it" more. deffo recommend if you like puzzles, spooky liminal space gaming, and have some patience :-)

awesome

There is something to be said about a game I'm not sure I finished. But I got all the endings for and found what I imagine is the hardest thing to find(Violaceus and Ending X). It's a very good game, surprisingly solid with a lot of unexplained coincidences between text logs and areas of the game. But I'm left wanting more, not sure more in what direction, just, yearning in all directions(ADF-23 is what exactly? How did those logs get on the website in universe?). The core of the game is the mystery of it's development, but unlike it's cousin, Forbidden Solitaire, you don't get answers and the relationships are more interesting. It also has a much scarier premise that it doesn't quite deliver on. Lynch on a budget, so to speak. The early parts of the game are mysterious and scary, but as the game progresses to the Actual Ending it becomes sappy and tragic, and kinda evaporates the actual mystery into very pedantic puzzles(ARG logs become a chore frankly) and 90s pc game scumming. Finding the Green Card, for instance, requires you to do some seam peaking by turning off the graphics filter, completely off base and frankly infuriating. Oh the the Fungus Guy honestly just sucks. Like Dev I get you tried to balance him but he just annoys the crap out of you and scums you out of progress. He isn't scary after the first encounter and he never gets there again. For what it's worth, this is an interesting fusion of early console and PC adventure gaming you absolutely do not want to miss. Hopefully this story continues in some meaningful way.