At Night : Freakshow

Pretty fun horror game, takes about 1-hour to 100%, so a little short for the price. I have been skipping your games over the years, mostly because the locations/modeling just didn't look that great in the trailers, but it seems you finally got to a point where it's starting to look good, I liked the design of the carnival and the look of the characters, as well as the textures. The game is somewhat linear, in a sense that it's pretty much on the rails, telling you where to go the entire time, but there were a few optional events, like riding the carousel, and finding a few collectables (could have used a little more of that though). The parrot "mechanic" made the game feel a bit unique, you are one of the performers at the carnival, and you have a bird that can do various tricks, only 2 on a first day, but you will unlock more as you progress. The bird was very cute, I named it Torgo, if only it had a bigger role to play, maybe you should have added more optional achievements that would use those bird actions in some way. Overall I felt the carnival could have used a little more exploration, you didn't let as ride the wheel (it's a carousel for the achievement). and I think just a few more optional areas would have been nice, or a few more optional interactions. The narrative was interesting enough, watching the other freaks perform was entertaining, and then having them get killed one by one was a nice way of building the tension and attachment to the characters. There was a little twist in the end with 2 endings that can be obtained on the same playthrough (just reload the last checkpoint). I suppose the ending was not too surprising, you kinda telegraphed the personalities of the characters very hard, so it was a little on the nose. But still, I didn't think it was bad or anything, games with carnival settings are always entertaining in my book. [h1]Pros: [/h1] (+) Enjoyable narrative settings, you are a performer at the freakshow, with a bird that can do various tricks. I thought you did a good job with the visuals, textures, and modeling in general. (+) The writing was not amazing, but I still enjoyed the characters, giving them their own cutscenes for performances was a nice touch, as well as that backstory segment. (+) The jump scares were pretty tense, if not a little cheap sometimes. But I think the game had a good sense of suspense, feeling like the killer is slowly taking them out one by one, and eventually coming for you. [h1]Feedback: [/h1] - Consider designing a unique UI for dialogue box that would fit the settings of the game, it will feel more immersive than a plain one. It's a carnival, maybe you could make some nice edges for it with a bit of color or something freakshow related. Generic text font is also not great, it's good to keep it legible, but also I think you could have used a different font to make it a little more presentable. - I wish the bird actions were used for more things within the game, maybe you could still go back and add a few optional interactions or reactions for it. - Try to have maybe playable endings, or cutscene endings, text endings and image endings are pretty lame. [b]Overall Thoughts: 7/10 [/b] You gave the location and the characters enough personality that I didn't mind the short length, I think it was a fun playthrough and I was mildly entertained the whole way. I do think you should have explored the bird mechanic in more ways, the optional events were very limited, even though I feel like you could easily find space for them. Overall, pretty basic horror game, but there was enough to enjoy about every aspect of the game, everything was kinda decent. [code]Niche, obscure and underrated games: http://store.steampowered.com/curator/31294838-Hidden-Gem-Discovery/ [/code]