For a $3 game, [i] The Night of the Scissors [/i] is a mediocre, short experience that demonstrates that its creators have some potential, but future games from them could try new things or incorporate already established conventions and aspects of the survival horror genre. This is one of those titles that are in the same vein as a Puppet Combo game, where the premise and story takes inspiration from 80s horror films and the gameplay and presentation is akin to survival horror games of the 90s like Silent Hill and Resident Evil, presenting its haunting and atmospheric environments in low-poly models and low-res textures that evoke the graphics of games on the original PlayStation.
Here, you play as Adam and break into an abandoned post office to steal some abandoned items to sell off for some Devil's Lettuce money. Unfortunately, he is very quickly locked in with a mysterious killer known as The Snipper; though it may sound like he's giving out vasectomies with a moniker like that, he instead likes snipping away at your chest and abdomen, stabbing his victims repeatedly once he catches them. Adam has to hide, survive, and eventually find a way to escape outside the now deadly post office. The premise is simple and barebones, and all I could do was think of vasectomy jokes whenever I read the killer's name. Still, the simple premise is the foundation of a brief, but enjoyable enough experience.
Though the gameplay tries to emulate the gameplay of 1990s survival horror games, it is missing quite a few features and is much more simplistic. This game takes about 30 minutes to beat, and one of the reasons this can be done so quickly is due to checkpoints and death ultimately means nothing. Dying is also pretty easy in this game, too. The Snipper can run almost as fast as you and kills you very quickly. In some rooms, he would spawn so quickly that there was no time to react and I died; however, I usually was placed back to somewhere close by and any key item I picked up remained in my inventory. There's no stakes or sense of risk when you die because you don't really lose any progress, and realizing this also means that the tension is lost. Survival horror games work pretty well because with limited saves, there was always the chance of dying and losing a lot of progress that you had made. Incorporating a save system and item/progression loss would add tension and make the game feel more frightening, as I'd have to worry about how much progress I'd lose or what item I'd have to go and get again.
There also is a lack of an inventory system. You basically just pick up an item in the environment and just go to where it needs to be used. Given that there are very items to interact with and that locked doors are also infrequent, it was always very easy to figure out where you go and there generally weren't any puzzles. Most of the exploration boiled down to finding the item to unlock the path that was previously inaccessible without said item. There is no inventory that you can navigate, as there are no weapons or healing items, and you only hold one key item at a time. It's very simplistic and minimal overall, and I'd like to see further games incorporate aspects such as weapons, healing items, inventory management, save system, and other key elements of those 1990s survival horror games -- doing so would help the gameplay feel more in line with that genre of games it is trying to pay homage to.
This project isn't a complete write-off or a terrible game by any means. I loved the visual style and its presentation, and the atmosphere was great, but there is definite room for improvement and the short length of this game may dissuade someone from purchasing. Sure, it's only $3, but it's a 30 minute game that goes on sale, so if you wanna check this out, it may be worth it to wait for a sale unless you want to drop the $3 just because it is so short. I love these Puppet Combo style of retro PS1 horror games, but I hope this creator's other games have advanced a bit beyond what is presented here.
