DEATHWATCH

Before you go full anger for dissing an indie let me say one thing. The dev of this game is a really neat person that's open to communication and criticism, I really like the innovative spin on the genre and I know a lot of love was put into this. With all that being said, after giving this game a few good hours and several attempts on various difficulties, I have to put a big red no on this one. The anomalies are painfully subtle and they don't "fix" once reported. But you can also have multiple anomalies of the same type in the same room, so you just end up spamming the report system until it hangs for several seconds. The flashlight is too "focused" and too small, which makes the spot you're looking at very bright, but the spot right next to it is pitch black.. (even adjusting gamma doesn't help) The entity often makes misleading sounds which make you look around for basically nothing, while other times you die because you ignore a very similar sound. The number system for banishing entity is fun, but because you literally get aneurysm trying to find the anomalies, you don't even get to properly use it. The few times I won I literally just got lucky instead of finding the correct code. The ideas in the game are really good. It sounds tense and scary on paper. Unfortunately the execution kinda just falls flat and the game just isn't really fun. I have played lots of other "observation duty" style games and I love getting all the achievements on them when they are done well. I'll most likely not be doing that here though.

This game is a perfect mix of Observation Duty and Five Nights at Freddy's. You're constantly monitoring screens for anything out of place and reporting anomalies, but while you do that, something is trying to break into your room. The tension comes from not knowing when the monster will make its move, and it builds a constant sense of dread as you're frantically looking around. What makes it so nerve-wracking is that the monster takes its time, adding to the fear of the unknown. Even without VR, this game made me physically sweat – it’s that intense. There’s a "Chill" mode for those who want a less frightening experience, where you don’t have to worry about dying and just focus on finding anomalies, but if you're looking for pure terror, this game has you covered. Highly recommend for horror fans, but be warned, it’s not for the faint of heart!

Day 4 of the October Horror Reviews: Deathwatch is a variant of the I'm On Observation Duty camera-watching games; somewhat similar to the FNAF games, but in these types of games, you're expected to watch the camera and then tick off anything that seems to have changed. Sometimes, it can be objects moving, disappearing, doors opening/closing, then in some cases, it can be things that are a little more unsettling - blood, gore, even dead bodies, or worse yet: The thing that killed the victims. Your job is to spot as many anomalies as you can, report on them, and after getting a number, you put it into a machine that exorcises the demon hunting you. The game's actually pretty unsettling: It's slow-burn, but you're also constantly kept on your toes, when you look around you, you can see the entity sometimes in the room, teasingly getting closer before running away. Every time you do this, the battery on your flashlight dies a little. The game also has an option that lets you play without the entity as an additional thing to worry about. This is better if you've got a weaker constitution, or you just don't want the headache of both at once. I'd say this is one of the more interesting horror games of 2022 - and there's something quite captivating about the way in which the player feels constantly hunted. My only critique is spotting the anomalies can be occasionally quite tricky, but that's more a skill-issue on my part. It runs well, sound design is decent, and tension is kept at a reasonable high. 7.9/10.

I love observation games and this one is my favourite. Definitely recommend it.

I don't even know where to start with this review, so I will just say it is 100000% WORTH THE BUY!!!! DEATHWATCH is this beautiful combination of Phasmophobia, Observation Duty, and FNAF!! I was thoroughly terrified the whole time! DEATHWATCH does not have cheap jumpscares, but instead leaves you on the edge of your seat, anxious for what is to come! I screamed loud MANY TIMES while plaything through all 4 maps in the game. From a broadcaster perspective, this is worth playing with your community!!! There is Twitch integration that literally puts your chat on a monitor in game (COOL) and allows them to vote to either Hinder, Haunt, or Help the streamer! I had my chat change my DPI to super high, block the screen, and show which rooms still had unlogged events. It was truly a fun experience for both broadcaster and Chat!!! While I was playing it live, I had the developer of the game come in and see how I liked it! Swains was awesome and really helped me when I was missing a lot of the events, or just when I had questions. They were incredible and I feel very lucky to have gotten to meet and talk with them!! I hope Game Juice Studios continues the amazing work that they are doing, because DEATHWATCH was a 10/10 in my book and will be played again!

This game is brilliant and so much fun to play. Very well made and very much a favorite of mine to play. Would highly recommend.

I really want to like this game and I can understand why it appeals to people. It does try to add new twists to the standard anomaly hunting experience. But for me, I just didn't enjoy it. And that's just personal preference for what I enjoy in a game. My biggest struggle was that anomalies didn't "repair" after being reported. I saw in the dev's response to another comment that they didn't understand why anomalies would get fixed. And yes, I can understand that. But as a player when you are playing the same map repeatedly to try to beat it (whichever difficulty) trying to remember what you reported this round, or was is last round, etc, got to be actually be rather tilting for me. I got incredibly frustrated trying to beat Nightmare mode on the first map and forgetting what I had reported. I'm also baffled by the dev's statement that 5mins into the game and you could have 20+ events already. Like what? Those must be some incredibly minute changes. And that a 15min game could have 75-100 events. I must just be a bad observer. I died multiple times on Nightmare mode because I ran out of juice for my light and so just had to let the demon kill me. I have no clue what I was missing on the map. The RGB event log system is okay. It has a purpose of once you get the code of banishing the evil but initially I was just like, what is this? There's very little intro into the game...like a mini lore dump as to what you are doing and why and how things work. There's also no explanation about the differences in the modes. You're just left to assume that Nightmare and Hell modes are harder in some way. So yeah, I did really want to enjoy the game and I don't think it any way it is a bad game. It will definitely appeal to many people. But for me, I was just more frustrated than having fun.

So the wife and I booted this puppy up for one of the videos in our annual Halloween special event. Hoo boy, did we have a great time with it! As fans of Observation-type games, we began to gobble up a lot of them after getting a taste with the first Observation Duty. Gotta say, this is one of the REALLY good ones. Arguably a strong competitor for Observation Duty itself due to how much more intense it is trying to recognize disturbances or oddities while also keeping a consistent gaze over your shoulder for anybody doing their own observations. Our first round was a warm-up so we had it on the easiest difficulty, Chill, which allows you to play with no active threat. Sure, you might think that would make it boring, but the game still keeps you on your toes with events that can easily make you forget you're not actually in danger! It's a good way to get a feel for the game and its unique mechanics so you don't end up getting overwhelmed too quickly. Now the second round, that's where it got REALLY good. We put it up to Normal difficulty allowing the entity to actively stalk us while spooking around the map, and loaded the second environment. This session was significantly more intense, in all the best ways. We had loads of screams, lots of laughs, and V and I were so anxious she was shaking and my mouth and throat had both dried up entirely. In the end, I'm pretty sure we only BARELY made it as things got pretty dicey (and also in our panic I noticed we missed some things along the way while editing). The game doesn't end until you log enough anomalies to find the correct code for your ghost-busting apparatus to do its thing, and if you don't plug in the RIGHT code...Well, you won't have to worry too long about that! An hauntingly excellent experience and definitely one of the highlights of our month for sure. For the meager asking price, you would be doing yourself an injustice not to give this a solid shake if you're a fan of these kinds of games and looking to get good and spookled. Heck, if you're STILL on the fence, the dev even offers the first map as a demo with Deathwatch: Prelude. You can try an entire session on the first of the four maps, and I'm pretty sure play it as much as you want? Guy is SUPER generous, I really don't think you'll be disappointed! ------------------ Oh, and if you read this dev? We're reeeeeeeeeally looking forward to Deathwatchers. Got a close eye on that one, and we're eager to give it a shot together. By which I mean I'll probably be looking for stuff while the missus hides in a corner, if Phasmophobia is any indication. =P In all seriousness though, keep up the good work sir/madam. We'll definitely be visiting this game again for more videos, and absolutely giving Deathwatchers a go ASAP.

I enjoyed this more than most of the other observation/hidden object games. Graphics were well done and jumpscares were timely and not convoluted.

I love observation style games, and play them a lot on my stream. It has a different enough twist to keep it interesting for sure and I can't wait for Death Watchers to launch!