SOMNIFUGE

this is a really well made indie horror, I was pleasantly surprised

Good

Ogólnie Somnifuge to gra polegająca przede wszystkim na odszukiwaniu właściwej drogi w zagadkowych labiryntach, które niejednokrotnie są wypełnione łamigłówkami, bądź w których musimy unikać wrogich istot. Trochę mnie męczyła aż w końcu pojawił się poziom w szpitalu. Tam, po wielu podejściach zdecydowałem się zrezygnować z gry. Ogólnie na tym poziomie unikamy szalonej pani medyk, którą zwabia każdy dźwięk, gdy włączamy dźwignię otwierającą drzwi i drukujemy podpowiedź z komputera. To najmniejszy problem, bo zawsze wtedy w pobliżu jest szafka, w której możemy się na chwile ukryć. Gorzej, gdy poruszamy się po korytarzach. Jej obecność sugeruje ciemna mgła. Tylko, gdy ona się pojawia to trudno zorientować się skąd pani medyk nadchodzi. A po drugie wtedy wszystko się zlewa z grafiką co utrudnia szukanie właściwej drogi. Jeśli wejdziemy do złego pokoju, gdzie nie ma szafki, lekarka nas zabija i zaczynamy poziom od nowa. Poziom powtarzałem wiele razy. Miałem już ustaloną drogę, co robić, ale i tak każdy nowy otwarty korytarz to niewiadoma i miałem jakiegoś kurde pecha, że ciągle na nią natrafiałem. Przy kolejnym podejściu wybierałem inną drogę, dochodziłem dalej, ale potem znowu ona. I zaczynanie od nowa. A idź pan w ch... A mam za sobą wiele survival horrorów, ale ten zirytował mnie jak kiedyś gra Vilomah, gdzie stara wiedźma pojawiała się z d.... Potem obejrzałem sobie gameplay i jak zobaczyłem, co jest później, to nawet może i dobrze, że zrezygnowałem, bo potem jest błądzenie po klatce schodowej. Trochę szkoda, ale od początku Somnifuge mnie nie przekonywało. Nieco grałem na siłę, robiłem długie przerwy. Po śmierci często wyłączałem grę. Niby ma dość ciekawe łamigłówki, ale coś tu nie pykło. Chyba zaczynam też mieć zmęczenie materiału taką stylizowaną grafiką. Może kiedyś do niej wrócę i mnie wciągnie (co czasami miało miejsce), ale na razie mimo wszystko nie polecam.

genuinely an underrated gem. probably one of the best indie horror games ive played in awhile. the backtracking and trying to figure out what to do can be a bit much at times but the overall mix of gameplay is genuinely fun and rewarding.

Very impressive on a technical and artistic level but some of the puzzles are just way too cryptic.

Great Horror puzzle game with alot of creativity

+

i want to like somnifuge, i really do, but its so incredibly confusing. the puzzles first start off pretty easy; explore and collect vhs tapes, which give hints/reveal puzzle solutions. but as you progress through the game, the puzzle solutions get increasingly more confusing, making it impossible to progress without using the hints system. and as of the time im writing this review, theres no steam guides or walkthroughs to help with this (edit: i wrote a walkthrough/achievement guide for anyone struggling. hope it helps!). speaking of the hints system, i found myself struggling with it. when you use a hint, it gives a super vague answer. if you click it again, its supposed to give you a more straightforward solution. however, thats not exactly how it works. ive had times where i was unable to get a more in-depth hint, while other times, the more in-depth hint was just as confusing as the vague hint. considering the confusing puzzles and rather unhelpful hints, its really easy to hit a brick wall in terms of progress. ive spent hours just wandering around, looking for clues and struggling to solve puzzles. its really hard to make progress in somnifuge, making the game incredibly unfun. i think theres a lot of potential, but the game is incredibly difficult and its hard to actually enjoy the game. according to the developer, somnifuge should take anywhere from 1.5 to 3 hours of playtime. but when you scroll through the reviews, most players who have left reviews have over 4 hours of game time. some people have even played for well over 6 hours! and considering somnifuge isnt exactly the most replayable game, you can assume that means this was all in the span of a single playthrough. i say a good chunk of this just boils down to the difficulty of the game and its puzzles, not the amount of content the game has. ive also had issues where somnifuge freezes or crashes. and since the game relies on autosave, these crashes can cause me to lose a lot of progress. not only is this incredibly frustrating on its own, but its even more frustrating in a game like somnifuge, where the puzzles are difficult and the environment tends to be very maze-like. overall, i think somnifuge has the potential to be a really great indie horror game. but where it currently stands, it just feels like constantly hitting a brick wall whenever i load up the game. edit: after almost 7 hours, i have beaten the game. i will be replaying the game in an attempt to get all the achievements, so i may find some additional secrets as i explore. but now that ive beaten the game, i can give an honest review of the story. i think its a super neat concept, but the ending is incredibly lame and takes away from the entire experience. im honestly super bummed about it, since the different areas you can explore are super cool and the evolution of the environment as you explore is neat. and even the unique puzzles (albeit, incredibly difficult and frustrating puzzles) are really interesting. the ending is just unsatisfying and leaves me wanting more from the game. edit 2: after 23 hours, i have beaten SOMNIFUGE in its entirety, including all six achievements. the SOMNIFUGE achievement ending (or dare i say, the true ending), is significantly better than the System Failure ending. its significantly more cinematic and adds more to the story. theres a few interesting achievements, namely Your Money's No Good Here and Find Yourself, that don't necessarily add too much to the story, but they do grant a few interesting cutscenes/changes to the environment. however, im still left with a lot of questions. what's up with the various cult/religion imagery? are there underlying themes that im missing? why are we in this mansion in the first place? neither ending really explains this. dr. fletcher is mentioned several times, but we dont really know who they are. i assume theyre one of the relevant figures in the SOMNIFUGE ending, but im not sure what they have to do with the simulation. and who are we? the character we play as never speaks, with only the occasional breathing sounds or grunts of pain. our name is revealed near the end of the game, but we really know nothing about who we are-- nothing about how any of the story relates to us or is significant to us, why some of this imagery is repeated, if the monsters represent something to us or not, etc.

Not a bad horror puzller per se but did I enjoy it? Mostly not. The reasons for that are the often too confusing puzzles (the lightbeam puzzle near the end is so annoying) and that this game is often maze after maze. Good luck beating the game without a guide. Then if you die you often have to replay huge sections of the game again which is so frustrating. The ckeckpoints are so far away and therefore bad. And yes, you also sometimes have enemies in the mazes, very "fun". And overall the game is just too long, it just doesn't want to end. You also have to backtrack a lot. Then the game basically has no real story. The big upside of the game is the creativity it shows. But that alone is not enough for me.

amazing amazing amazing. it's criminal that this isn't at 5k+ reviews. some of the puzzles are too hard, but the hint system is very helpful, and there's a great walkthrough in the steam guides section for parts where you get totally stuck. this game GOES PLACES. buy it and play it.