Penitence

As an indie developer myself, I try my best to avoid nit-picking and negative opinions of the work of other developers. However, this game had too much lost potential that really could have improved the experience immensely. I especially have to hold this to a higher standard since it was built using Unreal Engine. The development time saved using the many tools and assets within this engine should have been used to explore and expand the story further. There should be less foreshadowing and more exploration of each character's background and fate, even if through additional notes placed throughout the house. The climax of the story is realized at the very end of the game with no real conclusion for any of the characters. I can think of a few ways to neatly wrap up this story, but it just ends. Not a cliff-hanger ending either, you simply look at something interesting and the story suddenly stops. Be prepared to use your imagination to create an idea of what that last scene really means and assume the identity of who you are looking at. I'm trying not to exaggerate my complaint of a lack of story, but the story is so short that [spoiler] the concluding scene is actually shown in one video and one screenshot in the promo media of the game's listing. In fact, you can probably piece together the entire story from the promo video alone. [/spoiler] That is the real horror of this game. The lack of any kind of horror elements lost me as well. I actually forgot this was a horror game until I returned to the listing page to write this review. The first pop-up "scare" caught me off guard, but then jump scares were used so much that it was expected that you would have something jump out at you every time you turned around. I'm also not a fan of jump scares created by character blips where the model is spontaneously drawn in front of you and disappears a second later with zero movement. 0% terror and 100% cheesiness. Please don't flash character models on the screen to try to scare people, animations and illusions are less clichéd and more terrifying. The wife's letters were more terrifying than these failed jump scares! As I mentioned, I don't want to completely tear apart an Indie game. The developer should take this as guidance for improvements. Take more time to explore additional facets of this story, conclude the character stories, and replace the jump scare blips with animations and you might even be able to increase the price tag on this. It is worth $0.99 at best right now, not the $3.99 asking price. In my opinion, stories in games should be similar to a detailed book rather than a concise movie. Don't rush through development just to get any product out in the world, take some extra time to make it stand out in the indie community. But in the end, there were some significant deal breakers for me. Everything I mentioned so far can easily be ignored and is almost expected from a single-developer indie game (to some extent at least). Here are my final warnings to wrap this up: [olist] [*]On any graphics settings, this game is stressing my hardware more than any other game I've played (including heavy AAA titles). [*]The controls are unresponsive at times as my mouse would randomly stop working until I clicked to wake it up. [*]The puzzles are not conditionally locked, so I was able to cut corners and burn through the playthrough simply by exploring on my own. [*]The villain/monster can trap you in a room with no way around him, forcing you to have to kill yourself to complete the story. Collision detection really fails here since you come to a complete stop when he touches you from any angle that would allow you to run past him. Also, why am I losing health simply from being within a few feet of him? Even with a door blocking his path, I can be killed just by standing within close proximity of him with no line of sight. [*]The play time mentioned in the game's listing is quite exaggerated. I went out of my way to spend as much time as possible playing through the story and I was still able to get through this in such a short time. I explored every inch of the house, took breaks to eat my dinner while playing, and read every note in the game. However, I was able to get through my first and only playthrough in about 15 minutes with zero hints. I actually spent more time in the settings menu and sitting idle than I did playing the game. I can't imagine that anyone is seeing 45 - 120 minutes of gameplay as is advertised. [/olist]

It's a short and fun game. Not much of a puzzler but fun to play nevertheless. There's a few bugs and I had one game breaking bug and the escaping the entity isn't very well explained which can also break the game. (Psst. go into your office) I loved the story because it had a twist I did not expect and the team behind this nailed the atmosphere. I was more scared playing this than some of the bigger titles. Although short, the game makes up for it with its low cost of $3.99. What are you waiting for? Go play it!

the game is not finished yet. alpha or beta stage. not ready for release. the key system unlocks doors from one side, but if you close the door while a door is unlocked, it now becomes locked with no key in your inventory. I had no problems with frame rate or crashing issues, just the unfinished aspect. refunded. I may check it out again later after enough time has passed for the game developer to actually finish it, and others say to say it is fully functional.

Было хорошо, мало конечно, ещё и баги, а так нормас

Don’t post many reviews but since this one is smaller Indy game I Wanted to throw my hat into the ring. I loved it. It was fun interesting and short. I got some good jump scares out of it too! Please play it because i’d love to see this creator come out with some more games in the future. If you’re curious this is some game play. Give it 5-6 minutes and if you like it just stop there and go by the game. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed https://youtu.be/45JT5zqt9PA

Fun little game with nice graphics, builds a good atmosphere. It's short and sweet, just like me, and well worth a try.

It's not bad. Genuinely seems like a lot more care went into this than some steam horror shovelware. The environments are well done and the frights are tastefully done. But it is super short. There is nothing really amounting to friction in this game and you will breeze through it in 20 minutes, so recommended on a deep sale only.