Night of the Extinct

You obviously just released this free so you didn't have to bother playtesting it yourselves. I mean, the AI is absolute crap the moment you walk into the first room, so I am assuming you didn't touch the game yourselves the moment you released it, right?

If you're looking at just the presentation of this game, then it's not too bad. There's some charm present in the cheesy recreation of older youtube videos and some really nice artwork for some of the animals and characters. The menu is fairly cool and I like the nod to the recreation of prehistoric cats hunting humans when you die. The game's visual style is also more interesting than the usual mascot horror games that I see, fully leaning into being cartoonish with its models. Whether or not it always executes this well is a different thing entirely, because some of the characters do look overly silly or just a bit ugly to me. Regardless, looking at this free "pilot" from the perspective of aesthetics, I can understand why this might interest some people enough to want more of it. Judging it as a game however, well quite frankly I had more fun reading history facts than actually playing it. Annoyingly though, I wasn't even allowed to do that in peace due to the non-insignificant amount of interruptions present in some areas. One requires you to do a whole enemy stealth sequence first if you want to read them safely and the other involved the ugly bat consistently repeating voice lines in my ear while I tried to read. I'm sure that at least the latter could've been avoided. The two tasks that you're given in this game are pressure puzzles and the stealth segments I just mentioned. Stealth isn't very interesting or well made due to a lack of things to actually hide behind in some spots, leading to you fairly consistently trigger the object-permanence-lacking AI to chase you and then just waiting for its funky pathing to lead it far enough so that you can edge through the room again. The actual chase sequence near the end is also just a bit dull, there's nothing interesting environmentally and you're just holding shift to the end of a room. The nightguard at the start can also just be ran past and basically ignored entirely. Pressure "puzzles" are just you picking up an item and putting it on a glowing square and then it opens the door, which is hardly riveting. It's the only type of interactivity in the whole game, and it doesn't seem like they made any attempt to add any gimmicks that help their game stand out from the rest. A lot of mascot horror titles that I've seen, including some of the bad ones, still tried to spice things up a bit mechanically in one way or another. Poppy Playtime has the multi-tool hands which make for some pretty unique feeling puzzles, the upcoming Terrible Lizards is centring its gameplay around parkour, and even Garten of Banban introduced the drone which might have sucked to use but it was still a better attempt than nothing. Finally, this game is simply too short and rushes to both its scares and conclusion too quickly because of that. The only thing that's keeping you from first seeing the active threat a mere 3-4 minutes in is willingly spending your time reading the exhibits. A complete lack of any considerable build-up for the horror or time to sit with the setting and characters of the game not only doesn't make for a very satisfying experience, but also feels like the exact opposite of what you'd want from a mascot horror pilot, that being that it slowly eases you into what the rest of the game might be like and still acts as a good enough starting point while also leaving you with a core hook. This game's concept is owed upwards of an hour to get started, not a sloppily made 20-30 minutes.

Really fun, a bit too scary for me though

I played the game just yesterday. It was fun! As a slow person, it took me about 2 hours to complete. I played at the highest level of graphics and the game looked beautiful and moved smoothly. However, I will mention that my laptop is pretty though, so I can't say for sure if that played a role or not in its efficiency. The story is pretty simple and believable. Enough to explain why we're there and not too complicated to distract you from exploring. The environment is well balanced between lighting and darkness. The visibility is good, even in the dark. It resembles a museum atmosphere very nicely, which makes the experience feels original. Because of how well you can see, I don't find the flashlight very useful. I liked that it's treated as a museum and not just a space. You can see relics and learn about them. It's up to you if you look at them, but details like these makes the world around you look normal. Creepiness has a greater impact if combined with ordinary, rather than just making everything scary. The characters are interesting. They're diverse in looks and personality, which makes me curios about meeting the others if there's going to be a continuation. The game is, overall, intuitive. Objects that need to be interacted with have a subtle red glow that works just fine. The only time I felt a bit lost was at the beginning, when I needed the key. I think having the character think to himself that he needs to look for a key in the security office the moment he tries the door should be enough. The puzzles aren't hard. Being a museum themed game, I believe challenging us would add up to the experience. Maybe use the information scattered around the museum as clues to solve the puzzles. The scary moments are tense enough. Meeting Kiona was creepy. Kiona's challenge was hard for me. In that part I've got some issues to say: - Kiona walks through a couple of the hiding spots (the cardboard paintings, the panel with Central America formation). I got caught because of that; - One of the corners doesn't have a hiding spot. The one to the right of Megalodon, it's just a glass showcase that Kiona can see through. That area is hardly usable; - The cardboards aren't very effective. Kiona sometimes walks past them and sees you. Unlike the wooden tables, you can't walk 360 around it to avoid Kiona at every angle. Her walking pattern isn't predictable, so you can't make a strategy out of it. It's just luck. I noticed that throwing vases around doesn't distract her. At least, it didn't seem so to me. I think making use of vases to shoo her away it's a good idea. It would also make the second part of the challenge harder because you threw them all over the room. That's all I have to say. It was a very fun play and I hope this will continue. I'm looking forward to see the other characters. I hope Kiona will have some lines as well in the future. I think it's better for her to be portrayed more animalistic than the others, as it adds to the creepiness. I'd choose a good moment to make her say something.

great

not good, the animation of the entity is bery bad, he make a 360 degres rotation instantly, and go straight in your direction, and when we hide, he always see you, he hate this game

ended quite quick but love the concept, it has some crazy potential