Hello, fellow person with a really weird steam queue. I saw this game and it hit me with the animal magnetism of a discount gas station hotdog or a really questionable DVD at the thrift store.
It is about as bad as it looks, but sometimes you just want some nice schlock. And to my surprise, this was above-average schlock. For one dollar, I am satisfied with my purchase.
This is not a horror game. It is a true walking simulator with no damage, health, timer, or even a spooky dude chasing you. It has some ominous notes you collect and 2 intentional jumpscares, with many unintentional jumpscares from weird physics object collision sending you to the moon. Your only limitation is that you can't swim, and even then it just kicks you to the starting location. On that alone it isn't anything special, but it has some... let's say [i]interesting design choices[/i] to make me curious about the people that made it, and generally keep my interest in the game.
On the off chance you want to play this game: it will max your GPU. This is because (I think) they didn't bother to cap the framerate so the game will just eat your entire GPU if you let it. There are no menu options (for anything, actually, so I hope you like the default controls and whatnot. Extra strange since this is stock unity, I figure that would be setup for you!) so you have to go to your GPU control panel and cap the FPS yourself. For me, setting the FPS to 30 got it to a reasonable usage level, so I don't think it's a crypto miner or some other badware.
The game is very simple: you have an intro cutscene with horrid sound mixing where your Grandpa(or Uncle, I forgot honestly) sent you a letter inviting you to visit. You get there, the island is empty and within 10 seconds you walk by a golden idol and a postcard. Those are your collectables, collect them all and put them in one of two spots to get your ending. You may only need a majority of the idols, but you will need all 6 postcards. I found about 100 before learning I wasn't even half done and cheat engine'd in the rest, and leave it to more patient people than myself to figure out exactly how many the island has. The endings aren't exactly interesting anyways, by the time you have the materials needed you know what's going to happen.
Various points of note:
First: Even on this very store page, the writing is off. We're not talking MTL English: no computer would make these spelling mistakes. This looks like a 1st grader on their smartphone posting a youtube comment. Most of the in-game text is no better, with the exception of the notes, which come off a little camp but otherwise have correct spelling, grammar, capitalization, etc. Clearly two people worked on the script(also confirmed in the credits) and I guess the good writer never bothered with the other's work. Sadly the writing isn't interesting, just stock Lovecraft ancient one stuff, so it just gives you context for a game that doesn't need a whole lot of explanation.
Second: The postcards. Looking into the future, the devs are working on another game that is 100% focused on anime girls, so I'm just assuming it's just... their thing I guess. I want to say these are Koikatsu/Honey Select models, or at least from a game in that genre. Not sure why they started with this if their real passion was anime tits. If you are down SO BAD that you are considering this game for that content: you get like a smidge of nip, please go outside.
Third: Everything about the page screams shovelware, and while it certainly isn't quality, they did put reasonable effort into the map. The landmass you can walk, while mostly empty and populated with the same plant and rock models for 80% of it, is large. For some reason I am strongly reminded of Lego Island, I think it's the plants. The devs put a fair amount of effort into hiding the idols, mostly in places you'd expect but a few in some random corners to make wandering the island worth your time. The named areas on the island aren't groundbreaking concepts for a game in this genre but they exist and are surprisingly okay. Protip: your compass wigs out near the idols, although you need to be within a few steps. The game even has some amount of atmosphere! The more idols you collect, the spookier the island gets. Nothing groundbreaking, even from the start the island is in full Silent Hill fog, the music is the same free track on loop, and the other issues with the game kill all potential immersion... but it has a few nice touches.
Fourth: The houses. They aren't that bad on the whole, less copy-pasted than expected, but just seeing the gaps and seams in the structure is wild. I guess the devs had trouble making the parts fit the way they wanted? Some have hidden doors/compartments that really boil down to clicking the obvious spots but every time I [spoiler] opened the chimney door and watched the little physics brick fall over[/spoiler] got a giggle out of me with how clowny it looked.
Last: There are, to my count, exactly 5 things that move on their own in this game besides the player. Physics objects on interaction don't count, that is the player doing the moving. This is very funny considering one of the devs, Aristophanes Yates, seems to have worked on [url=https://www.abertay.ac.uk/abertay-digital-graduate-show/showcase/aristophanes-thomas-yates/]Wind Physics in college[/url] (I also expect he's the one who wrote the notes and not the questionable popup text, considering he went to college). You'd think there would be stuff swinging in the breeze: not even a little. You may also think this is a weird thing to think about: after 3 hours of doors instant-transitioning open it stays with you.
Devs: I have no idea how your development process works, but I'm deeply amused by whatever is going on there. Please confirm if it's koikatsu or not, inquiring minds must know.
