Dead Man's Fault

[code]Curator page here-->[url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/37670120/] DaRevieweD #206 [/url]<-- [i]New review every Weekend[/i][/code] [h1]"OH, ICU ALRIGHT. ALL OF YOU!!"[/h1] https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2899503248 [u] Here's The Thing:[/u] You are an anonymous cave rescuer- already not a good sign I know, who gets deployed to Deep Den Cave in search of the last cave explorer who went missing. Rumor has it that perhaps they’ve gone down to the deepest part of the area; so, what else is there to do but follow after them without any additional help or proper gear~ [h1] ! DISCLAIMER ![/h1] I ALMOST secured a key from the developers, but they passed. So, while I am still very much bitter, it wasn't enough for me to "not recommend" the game out of spite. Plus, that'd be unprofessional of me~ [h1][u][+] PROS;[/u][/h1] [h1]:) A FLARE FOR SOME EXPLORING![/h1] Game is essentially your two-bit walking simulator but one in which the entirety of it takes place in the damp, squalid and claustrophobia-inducing cave systems. Y’know, similar to the ones you would stumble into in[url=https://steamcommunity.com/id/DeadeGuard98/recommended/242760/] The Forest[/url]. However, the one-step-at-a-time horror tempo is more like that of[url=https://steamcommunity.com/id/DeadeGuard98/recommended/2158240/] The Trench’s[/url] with the source of the mystery only made known towards the last few minutes! Your gear consists of gloves that don’t give you rope burn, a flashlight that comes and goes, infinite flare reserves but the catch is there’s a cooldown between uses, a working pair of eyes to watch TV, and tireless chicken legs. There honestly isn’t much to do except for pressing onward, getting lost, but there’s also a [b]P.T.-like[/b] loop element to its exploration that’s fairly and understatedly fitted in there that you can’t quite tell because of the pervasively stifling darkness… True to its store page description, the spelunking should last about twenty to thirty minutes, and speedrunning attempts take half of that! From what I know, there’s but the one inescapable and linear outcome. Same can be said for all but one of its achievements, and it really grinds my teeth. I’ve tried “no flares”, “no stopping”, and “no turning back” runs but still a mystery~ [h1]:) NOT AS ROCKY AS ITS OTHER ASPECTS~[/h1] Did my eyes play tricks on me, or did I really not see any recycled assets listed in the credits!? If that’s the case, then kudos and mazel tov for going above, below, all around and beyond! No lie, the game reigns supreme from a visual standpoint, so much so that I thought I was literally wandering inside the twisting set piece from my favorite cave horror movie [b]The Descent![/b] There’s something going for the lighting that whenever I toss a flare, I just have to pause a bit in order to admire how far it goes or where it lands. It seems like the soundtrack must have lost its bearings too, otherwise I would have heard it by now… But oh well, long drawn-out silences and perturbing echoes fill that void nicely although I can’t say I’m too happy about it, but I digress- more on that later~ [h1]:) OK, YA GOT ME; I FELL FOR IT[/h1] I dunno what to make of the story because the premise was fine if not elementary. As for what follows after it however, the how as well as the why; they leave a nasty muddy taste and more questions than you can stomach! But I understand some people like that… I would instead like to commend its horror chops, and point out that both [b]The Trench[/b] and [b]Dead Man’s Fault[/b] have more in common than I first thought. For one thing, they have ways to siren’s call unsuspecting victims and the preliminary search subjects them to beautiful sights. And another, both underwater and underground scenarios respectively come with their own additional risks the further down you travel… There’s simply no way of knowing who or what you’ll end up finding, and that’s what is most anxiety-inducing about it. The open-ended nature of the [spoiler]being[/spoiler] harkens me back to the words of Rebecca from [b]The Descent[/b] who enunciated everything that could possibly go wrong during a spelunking expedition, such as but not limited to hallucinations and hyperventilation. But was it truly the result of oxygen running out or something more nefarious~ https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2899504153 [h1][u][-] CONS;[/u][/h1] [h1]:( NOT VERY DEEP, AFTER ALL.[/h1] Super monotonous gameplay- I know it’s a short game, but that doesn’t justify why it didn’t get the most out of its miles or milked the setting for what it’s worth. You’ll spend 20 minutes either just walking (or sprinting if you know what’s good for you), rappelling down a rope, dropping down a few feet and then the last 10 minutes… wait for it, crawling! Sure, you can hurl a flare, but it never quite made up for the boring movie-like progression. And to exacerbate matters, the insides of the caverns get cut and reassembled in such a way that by the halfway point, you would have seen 95% of what it has up its sleeves just in a different spot~ [h1]:( JUST. WOULDN’T. CAVE.[/h1] I know silence is golden sometimes, but I’m sorry to say that rule only lasted for like 10 minutes before it passed peacefully. Case in point, the cave being devoid of personality and scares for the most part. The latter of which, I was surprised to learn that [b]Dead Man’s Fault[/b] was actually of the “analog horror” genre; a term which I had just learnt of today by the way, when in fact I’ve played and sat through my fair share of them without realizing it! And so, I would like to humbly teach and/or remind the developers that typically with such works- there’s a necessary, fundamental, and incremental level of disturbance. An air of unease that should in theory, emanate more and more especially as the lore and circumstances surrounding the tapes gradually get revealed… However, nothing remotely resembling that occurred and even if it did, it landed flat in its face then, as I would say that the atmosphere was rather empty and lifeless. Until about the last 2 min where it kicked things up a few notches, albeit much too late I’d say. I could think of three instances where the flare could’ve been used to drum up tension; being snuffed out, seized away or suddenly being moved. Same goes for the sounds where maybe the planks get wrecked or the a stone drops from where you had just dropped down. So, my advice for the devs would be to maybe lay off “analog horror” and consider making creature flicks instead, you already have the backdrop for it~ [h1]:( AND DEN WHAT!?[/h1] Okay, “short game” should neither be synonymous with “incomplete” nor be grounds for “compromised quality”. And yet that’s exactly what took place with the story, which was already on shaky grounds to begin with… Not only do many question marks remain by the end, the answers that it hesitantly put forth also left itself defenseless to more rebuttals. Things didn’t make any sense and had gotten so bad, to the point that I became thoroughly convinced that not even the devs themselves knew which direction it was that they wanted to go~ [h1]BUGS:[/h1] x Some floating stones and planks of wood. [h1]NITPICKS:[/h1] ~ No graphical options to tweak, that’s pc-discrimination right there! ~ Checkpoints after watching each tape. [h1]"IT WAS JUST AL-EYE-GHT"[/h1] https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2899505958 [u]Last Words?[/u] Nothing eye-catching or striking await you at the bottom, but as they say- “not the destination, but the journey” to which I agree! Shame it wasn’t longer & better planned, but people will be down~ [h1]6.5 / 10[/h1] [code]Don't forget to follow my curator [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/37670120/] DaRevieweD[/url] for more games!![/code]