Day 6 of the October Horror Reviews: Prison Alone
This one was challenging.
I have to say, I can't really agree with some of the sentiment in the other reviews for this game. For this one, I'm going to go through what the game did well, and then clarify exactly why I feel I can't recommend it.
The game uses a prison as a setting; this isn't entirely uncommon in horror games - if you've ever played The Suffering or Outlast, you'd agree that prisons (or prison-like settings) can be high-tension atmospheres. The game generates quite a bit of atmosphere from the start. You feel dread walking through the corridors, you feel the tension of your environment gripping at you, the way you're likely going to face *something* is pretty unsettling.
The sound design is decent, the game feels tense because there are numerous tells that suggest something is happening - little bits of audio gore that make you aware that something's constantly present, lurking around every corner and watching you.
The visuals are good too; the prison feels quite well-realised, and it's clear that someone put quite a lot of time into ensuring it came to life, every location feels like it has something to contribute, and the game encourages you to explore every inch.
Story-wise, it's got an Outlasty feel, they've been working on something inside the prison and it's clear that thing has sinister intentions. As you go through the game, you pick up little pieces of lore that explain more about what might have happened, and how they got to this point. Towards the end, you can make a choice: Leave, or confront the creature that's been stalking you.
Now to go onto my critique, and to rip the bandaid off, we're mostly gonna bullet point this:
- It's poorly optimised. Even running reasonable specs, things quite frequently lag and messing with the graphics features doesn't help a lot.
- No autosave or save feature of any kind. It's a quick game, but there's no continue or auto-save function, you're supposed to go through the whole thing in one sitting, which, if you're not overtly observant, can be a bit of a slog.
- The tension dissipates when you miss certain scares. The game notifies you through sound when something happens, but as you're scripted to walk into a certain spot and see a certain scare, if you're looking away from that area for whatever reason, you won't actually see it.
- The creature feels underwhelming. It's design looks like a shadowy figure that can crawl along walls and likes to stalk you. There's no legitimate threat until the end, and even then, you're still given the option to just leave and not think about it.
- The option to leave isn't really an option. If you're like me, you walk around the place just clicking and exploring things - at the end, I clicked on the door just past the metal detectors, and as soon as you click on those doors, the game ends. I'm aware it's more a common sense thing, but again, considering there's no save points/checkpoints, the game basically tells you to start from the beginning if you'd like to see the other ending. You're not warned that if you click on the door, that's it, there's very little signposting. A very minor gripe, but combines with the autosave/checkpoint one to be a bigger one.
- The music feels unnecessary and repetitive at times. If you're in one specific spot, when you enter another, the soundtrack changes to reflect that, but sometimes the change can be unnaturally dynamic. Horror games often play with very subtle, typically sombre or tense music to instil a sense of dread, this game tends to use music that evokes more of a curious vibe, and balances that with other music where there's a very obvious foreboding. The balance doesn't really work.
- The prison is big, and that's great, it adds to the sense of being a very small part of a very large space - it's easy to get lost. But also: [i] It's easy to get lost. [/i]
Not only that, but exploring every single cell, while not necessarily forced upon you, sometimes feels as if it is, as certain key items need to be found.
- Puzzle repetition. The same puzzle is used about 3 or 4 times, and by the last time, you're kind of wondering why there isn't a sense of variety. The only other thing to do is a fetch quest, where you're given a locked door, and expected to find either a code or a key, and usually, this is quite well-hidden. Not exactly a problem, but if you've got a very small note with a code in a very massive environment, even if the note is in a more obvious area, it still feels disadvantageous.
- The notes. In terms of accessibility, the notes feel somewhat underwhelming. They're intended to explain part of the lore, but I felt as though I was squinting to read certain notes, and I didn't see an option to have certain things changed to an easier font. It's not a huge deal, as the font isn't that hard to read, but it's still a slight pain. Not to mention, I had two of the notes glitched into my inventory for seemingly no reason.
All in all, the experience feels... lacking. There's potential, of course - but I can't exactly say that I felt moved by this game in any conceivable way, I don't feel as though anything here was particularly memorable, and I guess it just really struggles to stand out. A decent try, but I'd say there's a fair bit to learn from here.
3.5/10
