Blank Frame

Проснувшись посреди ночи, Генри видит, что его входная дверь перекрыта шкафом, который провалился с верхнего этажа. Наш герой начинает метаться по квартире с целью понять, что происходит и как ему выбраться. Далее в сюжет вдаваться не буду. Отмечу лишь то, что он здесь метафоричен, если так, конечно, можно выразиться. Буквально с первых минут игра цепляет своей атмосферой, которую создают стилизованная под (с натяжкой) PS2 графика и хорошо подобранная музыка. Хоррора как такового здесь нет. Загадки в основном сосредоточены на понимании, куда применить тот или иной предмет. Игру сравнивают с Silent Hill 4. Да, здесь есть некоторые сходства: героя зовут Генри, мы заперты в квартире, есть соседка, которая нам будет помогать. [quote]Иногда внутри нас появляется тихий голос. Он уговаривает оставаться там, где всё кажется понятным и предсказуемым, даже если это ограничивает возможности для роста.[/quote] У автора данной игры получилась интересная и глубокая история. Рекомендую данный проект к ознакомлению, особенно ценителям сюрреализма в сюжете.

Для фанатов Silent Hill 4: The Room посвящается. Игра предлагает своеобразный похожий взгляд на замкнутую квартиру, где игрок в лице Генри оказывается в замкнутом пространстве и предлагается найти выход из этой ситуации. Для этого нам приходится шаг за шагом находить разные предметы и использовать их в нужном месте, а также взаимодействовать c соседкой Аавой - для продвижения по сюжету. Химия между персонажами очень хорошо показана. Шедевр! Игра представляет собой что-то вроде адвенчуры бродилки с пазловым составляющим. [b]Атмосферная, местами жутковатая, сюрреалистичная, меланхоличная; хорошо написанная сюжетная составляющая,[/b] но с ошибкой реализованная техническая сторона exeшника (запускается в растянутом 480px, но есть фикс). Bugs & Flaws: - Игра требователен к железу, т.е. на среднестатистическом конфиге игра будет подтормаживать. В более современном конфиге, игра работает нормально без лагов. Это первый момент. - Второй момент. Диалоги появляются медленным темпом, слово за словом, было бы не лишним добавить в настройках урегулировку темпа. - Третий, главный, момент, самое ужасное, то что она в сломанном разрешении запускается, т.е. запускается 480px и растягивается на всю ширину экрана с черными полосами в боку, графика становиться помутненным, внутриигровой текст становиться нечитаемым, а картинки неразборчивыми, с таким графиком не стоит играть - это вредно для глаз. [u]Решение есть в руководстве.[/u] - Четвертый момент, в игре сказано - игру нужно пройти за один присест, нет сейвов, но для такой игры необходимы сейвы, было бы не лишним. Bugs & Flaws: - The game is demanding on hardware, i.e. on an average config the game will stutter. In a more modern config, the game works fine without lags. This is the first point. - The second point. Dialogues appear at a slow pace, word by word. It would be nice to add an option in the settings to adjust the speed. - The third, main, point, the worst thing is that it starts in a broken resolution, i.e. 480px starts and stretches to the entire width of the screen with black stripes on the side, the graphics become cloudy, in-game text becomes unreadable, and the pictures are illegible, you should not play with such a graphics - it is harmful to your eyes. [u]The solution is in the guide.[/u] - The fourth point, the game says - the game must be completed in one sitting, there are no saves, but for such a game save is necessary, it would not be superfluous. [i]Message for developers: Fix, please, third point, incorrect game resolution;[/i]

At some point in this game a radio station host has someone call in on the night show to share a scary experience he just had somewhere outside. And it acts as ominous foreshadowing and a red herring suspense builder while simultaneously expanding upon the scale of oppression well past the confines of the apartment building. This sole moment secured it a thumbs up from me.

Eğer indie korku oyunlarını seviyorsanız bunu sakın kaçırmayın bildiğiniz gizli bir mücevher bu. Anlatmak istediğini anladığımda ise içimde bir burukluk ama yüzümde bir gülümseme oldu. (euneirophrenia sonunu alırsanız tabii) Edit:Soundtrackleri muhteşem

Good game, although it's really buggy, so keep that in mind. There's several ways to softlock or glitch your controls which I personally only managed to fix by completely reinstalling the game. Game has no save function, because of this you must play it in one sitting. While the game isn't super long, it's longer than I thought for a game of this price - this is a plus but makes the no saving really awful, pair that with the fact that you may end up completely locked out by various bugs it can feel like a bit of a drag. One of the most notable bugs I had 2 times now was if you skip dialogue with fast forwarding(hitting space or clicking on the screen) you can end up glitching your UI making you completely unable to progress, in which case the only fix for me past that point was reinstalling as it would happen from that point on regardless of if I skipped dialogue or not. Game is definitely a gem, it's got a cool concept and I appreciate the homage to Silent Hill: The Room, which for its time was a innovative and ambitious project. It gives very vaporwave, muted pixels, PS(not ps2 imo) vibes. It's an interesting creative piece of art that was surprisingly well made, bugs aside.

Wirklich stark! Wie man merkt, ist es sehr von SH4 The Room inspiriert. Die meiste Zeit wirklich gute, treffende und enge Atmosphäre mit einigen Sektionen, die mir sehr gefallen. Wirklich gute erste hälfte und etwas verschenkte zweite hälfte gegen Ende. Ich hab mich leider etwas selber enttäuscht indem ich mir ein cooleres Ende erhofft habe, was vielen SH4 Fans sicherlich auch passieren könnte. Trotzdem ein sehr starkes Spiel und für 5€ lohnt es sich auf jeden Fall. 8/10

Ужасно скучный геймплей/отвратные загадки/фильтр и общая атмосфера под стиль SH4 просто в унитаз. Не берите.

Blank Frame is a “COVID Era isolation” walking simulator horror game developed by Through Tunnel (aka Riku Lempiäinen), a solo developer who according to a Steam review by Sebas-Chan recruited a bunch of his friends to create this singular game as their first title. That’s all I’ve been able to really find persay without doing a fifteen hour super deep dive through their Discord server. However, I can at least tell you how I was able to find the game, and that was mainly through something simple: a friend of mine wishlisted the game and I took a look at it and said “Wow, a short indie atmospheric horror game? Sign me up!”. A little while later, they funnily enough bought me the game, and then eventually I sat down and streamed it for a friend of mine. (For Plot/Spoilers, click here for the full review: https://www.backloggd.com/u/gamemast15r/review/1521121/ ) I’m sure you could sit down and say that the game is partially a walking simulator, I mean for the most part you just interact with your limited environment and combine certain items together to solve puzzles to move the plot forward. There isn’t really much in the way of “combat” aside from perhaps the final fight in the Good Ending where you have to take photos of creatures in a limited amount of time. I think if anything, I’ll probably have to criticize it a bit for just how confusing it can be sometimes to navigate to certain things? For example, if I hadn’t looked at the guide below I wouldn’t have figured out the code to the television puzzle as I thought you just had to click through the channels to find something. However, it turns out that you have to literally press the channel numbers in the correct order (062 I think?) and the only way you would’ve found that out is by looking it up, brute forcing it, luck or thinking way outside the box (like finding the numbers in your environment). Aside from that and waiting around in certain instances, it’s honestly just a game of exploration and trying to figure stuff out. The only other things I could think of are the fact that getting one of the two endings depends on whether you open a window or not, with some slight variation; also there’s only two places I believe you could die, at this window or the final boss of the game. Otherwise there aren’t any “cheap deaths”, though it is annoying to have to restart EVERYTHING without an autosave. The steam page for the game advertises this as early 2000s PC/PS2 graphics; an advertisement that truthfully I’m not totally sure about. It feels a lot more in line personally for the Playstation 1 feeling but honestly I’m a sucker for nostalgia anyways so I wasn’t particularly bothered by it, overall I love the old crunchy looking models. However, that’s not what makes this game’s atmosphere interesting. It’s the art design and the color palettes, the atmospheric direction so to speak and what I can say on this end is that this game’s atmosphere is pretty unnerving. For the most part you will only see darker colors, and I don’t mean the fact the game takes place late night/early morning; see you’ll be seeing a lot of darker shades of neon, dim and flickering lights; a sort of feeling that you could see in a sort of Youtube lofi and chill thumbnail that makes it both feel comfy but mixed in with this disheveled and rusty design around you from the rusty cabinet blocking the door or the shady alleyway with the p o r n buildings nearby. If I could assign this game a color then it would definitely be whatever is between purple and black, and it looks great! The actual monster designs are pretty freaky too whenever you see them (which is sort of rare), and mixed with the lower graphical fidelity made me wonder when they would pop out of the shadows surrounding the building. Most of them made me feel uncomfortable except the last monster, which looked like the wooden frame that holds up a canvas but with legs which I guess evokes the Blank Frame symbolism but it’s kinda goofy if anything. Everything else however? It feels like it could come straight out of a Gothcore music video with elongated pointy boots or nose and some straight up monster kaiju designs that feel like it could come from Siren of all things. They’re pretty uncomfortable yet effective and I was always trying to be aware of my surroundings in case they could trigger one of the “kill states” that was advertised. The soundtrack, composed by Robbert van Bruggen & Johann Hackl (aka Glazers), feels like it could take its influence from the pinnacle survival horror series: Silent Hill. It sounds verbatim to a lot of games that I’ve played in the indie PS1 graphics horror genre but truthfully I don’t see what else this could feel like. Some tracks like Self Condemned Part 1 sound like a straight up panic attack, slowly building as the track’s heart beats faster and faster before fading into this slow-synth sounding string section. Self Condemned Part 2 evokes imagery of solemnly looking into the distance of an alien landscape, wondering if everything was worth it in the end yet glad that the nightmare is finally over. A Theme of Dreams basically evokes the feeling of the title, feeling like you’re stuck in a happier part of a dream while Essence of Death evokes safety and belonging. The game switches between these sort of moods with ease and blends it in easily with the silence as you roam your apartment, making it a sort of mood booster when you do hear something. The sound design in general basically consists of silence, the noise that taps as you scroll through dialogue and random bits and bobs around the environment like doors opening, picture frames smashing and the like. It feels familiar, comfortable yet uneasy and evokes a sort of slow burn horror that I vibe with when I see it, enhancing the environment around you as the tension creeps in. How about voice acting? There is none really, and in those cases I always felt it enhanced the immersion for me anyways so overall, the vibe check with the sound design like the graphics and art design is pretty damn good. My feeling on Blank Frame going through it was that it was a pretty solid first game for a group of indie developers who never created before. The art direction was creepy and sad if not disturbing and confusing at the same time, mixed with that low poly graphical style that I simply can’t help but utterly simp for. The Sound Design is solid as hell in this territory too with it’s minimalist atmosphere while the soundtrack has this haunting dreamscape quality that sounds comforting sometimes yet utterly unnerving in other times; the only way I could describe it is beautiful. However, when you go into the game you have to be aware that this is a “sit down and play in one sitting” kind of game, with a couple of confusing gameplay sections that I ended up needing a guide and the metaphoric allegorical horror plot that left me scratching my head and trying to interpret its themes. Overall, it’s a solid time and I would think it’s definitely worth the five dollars or so though I didn’t buy it, so shout out to the homie Elephantmonstermcgee for the game! The developers are also seeming to keep at it, with their next game called “A Path That Lingers” being teased a bit on their Discord server. Links: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2738565131 (Guide) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgoRZkZUAWw&list=OLAK5uy_lGWcTQzgjFuk_sRvn68aIeSYuFEHUK1jA&index=1&ab_channel=Gazers-Topic (Soundtrack) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2So1CCZaeM&ab_channel=TheGameArchivist (Playthrough) https://throughtunnel.itch.io/blank-frame#:~:text=The%20game%20is%20about%20an,The%20game%20contains%20two%20endings (Itch link) https://twitter.com/ThruTunl

If you're into this genre of indie horror then I'll just say this is one of the great ones. You never know what to expect and the tension shortens your breath. No cheap scares but not just a walking sim and an emo banger of a story. It's a must have.

I thoroughly loved this game. The atmosphere and the just weirdness of it just made it unique and unsettling to playthrough which i just loved. Amazing work honestly. The story however is my personal favorite aspect of the game. The story is intentionally vague and left open for interpretation and I love it for that, I however, have my own theory or interpretation i'd like to share. If anyone agrees or has their own theory please comment below i'd love to here your thoughts. SPOILER WARNING! So from the very beginning of the game just by examining the Henri's room and various items in it, you can see him make comments about not getting out much and you can see how extremely isolated he is. Now this next part is just my theory and personal thoughts. I think the whole game wasn't real. More like the whole game was a analogy for his mental health issues. You see he clearly likes the safety and comfort of his apartment, but also doesn't like the feeling of being trapped. I have many mental health problems myself and this often is the case, when you have depression or anxiety you are at war with yourself and want to go out but your afraid to or dont want to. Then we have the hole in the wall which i think is interesting. I'm not sure what the meaning behind that is I only have a few guesses. And then theres the blank frame which has never been used, showing he clearly has little or none family or friends. I also think Aava is a representation of maybe a part of himself that wants to get out and helps him get out, I don't think shes real. In fact on the TV the girl on that corny movie was named Eva, very similar to Aava, it makes me wonder. I think Aava is kind of the version of himself that gets out and does things more, and I also thinks she represents his hopes of finding love someday. Now the part where I'm sure there is some symbolism but I'm not sure what is means really, is the monster or the antagonist. It seems like its supposed to be a strange form of Aava but I'm not sure. It is a female which i think is worth mentioning. But I'm not sure how exactly it fits into all this. But its interesting that in the one ending you have to take pictures of it, something that Henri clearly doesn't do, due to all his ' Blank Frames.' And then some more things that point to mental health is him accidently getting cut by the knife, and also the noose in the cabinet. It seems to indicate that at some point he had thoughts of suicide but (in my opinion) never went through with it. Anyway, its safe to say that this game connects with me. I've had panic, anxiety and depression for most of my life and even if that's not the true meaning of this game, I like that they leave it open-ended so that us players can come to conclusions ourselves. I love this game so much and the messages it conveys. Its so unique and truly feels like the devs put a lot of heart into it. Please also, check out my youtube, I'm new to it and I could use the support:) https://youtu.be/bW0EXZvpGo8