The Victor Initiative

The game begins with a recovered videotape recorded about thirty years ago. It shows three friends walking through the woods, talking about investigating an abandoned facility. When they suddenly hear something and start running, one of them disappears. The remaining two later find his body, but before they can escape, they vanish as well. It’s revealed that the facility was built over a mysterious rift. While its main purpose was to study the rift, it also served to contain anything that might slip through it. Years later, you are sent into one of these facilities to close another rift. However, you have no idea how it manifests or what horrors might await inside. At the start, the game allows you to choose between Normal Mode, which includes monsters, or Story Mode, where you can play without them. You can also adjust the level of jumpscares and change the field of view. By default, the camera is positioned close to the character’s face, giving the experience a slightly claustrophobic feeling. The game’s visuals deserve a special mention; a moody blend of modern 3D rendering and a subtly pixelated aesthetic that enhances the eerie atmosphere. Your goal is to push through the facility and survive whatever comes your way. Armed only with a flashlight, you can expect plenty of darkness and a limited field of vision that reveals just a few steps ahead. Some lights in the facility still work, but instead of offering comfort, they make the surroundings feel even more unsettling. Aside from the standard movement and interaction controls, you also have a short sprint that takes quite some time to recharge. The game is divided into chapters, each consisting of a linear sequence of stages where your main task is to find the exit. Sometimes you’ll need to press switches, find access codes, but most of the time, you’ll be avoiding deadly entities by following specific rules. The first chapter introduces a deceptively innocent-looking rocking horse, which involves a mechanic familiar to horror fans. The rule is to never look away. If you turn your back on it, it will move toward you and kill you. In the second chapter, you’ll face mannequins, which follow the opposite rule: do not look at them. This chapter also introduces a gun, though you must find a single bullet to shoot boxes blocking your path to the exit elevator. In the third chapter, you venture into a forest and navigate several maze-like areas where you encounter drones. Each chapter introduces new surprises and environmental changes that keep the experience interesting. Previous threats don’t disappear, meaning you’ll often need to manage multiple enemy types and mechanics at once. The stages aren’t long, but there’s no saving until a stage is finished. Throughout the game, you can find collectibles that expand the overall story. These items are easy to spot thanks to their white outline. While subtitles appear during the main narrative, audio logs lack them, which can make it easy to miss certain details. All three types of collectibles — video, audio, and documents — can be revisited anytime through the Collection tab in the main menu.

A really well-made, artsy horror game which is unlike anything else on the market at the moment. I had to approach really interesting and well-designed horror challenges in ways I never have had to. I'm not a big horror game fan, but I really enjoyed this one.

This game is pure art, I wish more people knew about it. It's like a mix of Alan Wake 2 and Twin Peaks.

I haven't finished it yet but so far, I've had an amazingly horrifying time in a good way. There are some good jump scares, but the game doesn't rely on them to billed tension while allowing release at some of it at the check points. Along with horror are some interesting story elements that are backed up by some cinematic visuals/set pieces. The game play is reasonably simple but becomes more interesting as the different mechanics billed up and start interacting with each other. One of the things that didn't help was that some the set pieces I had to run past because of the enemies.

NOTE!! Steam seems to be representing my playtime incorrectly. I played for around 4 hours and did complete every available chapter before reviewing. Thanks steam. Super good Survival Horror game. This is not a genre I typically go for but I still found myself appreciating every aspect of this game. The core gameplay loop features a few simple mechanics and enemies which are used very creatively to mould unique and fun challenges. I felt that the game extracted as much as it could out of these mechanics and managed to push them to logical extremes with a very natural difficulty curve. The game certainly challenges you at times but it never felt overbearing. There were some notably cool gameplay setpieces that caused you to recontextualise your relation to the enemies and environment which I will not list for spoiler reasons. Stuff like this kept me on my toes throughout the playthrough. Environment design was very simple but effective. I feel the atmosphere is carried by the use of lighting, shaders and especially the audio design. Audio was well mixed and felt the right amount of loud when needed. This is also coupled with extremely standout voice acting from some surprisingly big industry names considering the small team and scope of this game. No clue how these people managed to get involved but nonetheless really cool. I'm not very narrative-centric but I at least enjoyed the intrigue and mystique around the locations and the different enemies. I thought the use of live-action cutscenes was great for many reasons. It is a good way to get around budgetary/time restrictions which indies usually don't employ. It also gives the game a lot of heart, with an almost B-Movie horror quality which I find endearing. A statement which would've been unnecessary a few years ago, but the game has a very human quality. I had extremely tiny issues with navigation twice during my whole playthrough. These didn't impede me for more than 10 minutes each and this is something I struggle with in other games. I would absolutely recommend this game and it is cheap. More content is on the way too which I am very excited for, as the current last two chapters (3-4) began experimenting with different structures of navigation which felt refreshing.

Saw this game on Instagram and picked it up for Halloween. I really enjoyed the spooky vibes and the story of a mysterious being getting loose in a lab. I recommend buying it and supporting a new developer.

let me buy the soundrtrack

Get away from me horse get away away horse get away GET

[i]Review revised now that I've had a chance to spend a lot of time with this game.[/i] I loved this game enough to write a 100% completion guide about it. I have gone through the entirety of this game several times on Normal and Story mode, I've replayed specific chapters over and over again. I've bought the soundtrack and had it playing in the background, TVI Girl an absolute banger and of course, Processing (Initiative Version) being my favorites-- Chase, too, and a few others. These tracks done by Jack Rafferty himself AKA Spacepiano/Spacepiano Games. All of the tracks featured in the game are seamlessly integrated into scenes that take place throughout the game. The voice acting cast is stacked, you've got: BG3's Samantha Béart, FFXVI's Ben Starr, WH40K Space Marine II's Inel Tomlinson, and more! You can find the other amazing VAs listed on Spacepiano Games' Tiktok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@spacepiano_games/video/7607177579409214742 The game itself is closing in on the definition of perfection. You won't find a more well thought out survival horror game that achieves what it sets out to do, its story nothing short of excellence. It takes place in a government facility that was abandoned in the 1960s, located in North Wales-- more specifically, within Eryri National Park-- and features Welsh mythology and language weaved into the story in such a genius manner. The puzzles throughout the game will leave you thinking hard on some of them if it's your first go through the game, and to 100% the game you need to go out of your way to investigate and piece together information obtained from completely different locations. The game is pretty much bug-less and what few bugs remained on 1.0 release I've gone and reported them under Bug Reports in this game's Discussion, where Spacepiano has been an absolute joy whenever he answers anyone's posts. The man's got passion, and he's got kindness, there's nothing more that I'd want to see out of a game developer, personally. I pray that this game blows up one day so it and Spacepiano can receive their well deserved fame. Even so, according to one of his patch notes-- and I read through them all-- he's already begun work on his next project. Spacepiano's work ethic and his drive is beyond incredible, and it's the sort of energy I wish all indie game developers had. You are an icon of what it means to be a small indie developer. Imaginative in creation, impassioned enough to see your projects through, kindhearted, and professional. Maybe you aren't a fan of this type of game-- that's okay. If you aren't, then maybe Spacepiano's personality will be all you need to wait for and support his next endeavors. I promise you won't be disappointed. As for me, I've done about all I can for the game. I've shared and talked about it with friends, gone bug hunting, written an extensive guide, asked questions in Discussions, listened to the soundtrack, and uncovered every mystery the game has to offer. I'm sad that I've engaged with the game until there was nothing left-- sad not because it happened, but because my time with it is at its end, and I'll eventually move on to other titles because I've squeezed every last drop of everything The Victor Initiative has to offer-- that's how much I love this game. Anyways, I'll shut up now. If you're looking to buy this game, get it, it's fantastic, I love it and you might just love it too, and if it isn't your thing then consider doing it for the one-man Welsh indie developer: Spacepiano Games.

I absolutely loved this game — it felt like the Federal Bureau of Control and the SCP Foundation had a wonderfully weird baby. The puzzles were engaging without being overly difficult, and the "enemies" offered a fair challenge that made me retry a few encounters but never pushed into frustration. I played on normal and thought the overall balance was solid. I ran into one bug through my entire playthrough which I brought up to the dev and he fixed within an hour. The soundtrack was excellent, and the voice acting was consistently strong — not just from the well‑known actors, but across the entire cast. The humour in some of the notes and logs was great, I enjoyed that light-heartedness. And as someone who’s Welsh, hearing my language, the accents, and seeing real locations I know (and have even visited) mentioned, made the experience feel surprisingly personal. Bendigedig!