PEGBRJE: Without Escape and Alien Life Lab
Two kinds of horror. Kind of. Maybe.
Without Escape is a point-and-click horror game made by Bumpy Trail Games, an indie dev based out of Spain. Within this tale, players follow an unnamed individual home alone without parents, only to be awoken in the middle of the night by a strange noise and attempt to investigate. What happens next, well…
As is normal with point and clicks, players are given a narrative explanation for where they are, and a fixed camera to show off the angles that are necessary. In this case, it’s an adventure within the player’s own house where things are no longer the way that they should be. Clicking on items will give the protagonist’s description on them, assisting in figuring out whether or not there are items that may or may not be useful within. As one explores, it will become apparent that there are puzzles hidden within plain sight either through the use of keys, combinations, or other more obscure possibilities. I didn’t find the puzzles themselves to be that challenging, although I did have to look up a single solution related to a particular clock that confused me — I blame my own reading comprehension.
The strength, at least in my eyes, is in the execution of the puzzles and their surrounding atmosphere. The player finds themselves in an empty house in the dead of night with some strange events occurring, meaning that this is already the most terrifyingly relatable experience I’ve had in a while. The fact that imagination runs rampant when nothing is there to fill the void will always be scary, especially when something actually fills it and confirms those suspicions. The sound design is stellar as random items will just fall to the ground at odd times, or simple swelling of sounds will return only to die off just as quick to set players on edge. I never once encountered a jump scare, but I definitely was in that state of nervous confusion the entire time. The twist that leads players in to the later half confirms the suspicions of unknown events occurring, although the reveals of the fear usually end up calming me down as I can no longer fear the unknown itself.
With many possible ways to round out the conclusion, Without Escape does a great job of setting up its horror tale thanks to the fantastic visuals and gorgeous sound design to prop up the relatively straight forward puzzles. It’s not lengthy, but will definitely give you a fantastic feeling of isolation and confusion while exploring a relatively small location. If you have an hour or so, try it out and see where you end up.
Alien Life Lab is a… uh…
Well it’s a game?
Let’s try this again. Alien Life Lab is a bizarre ‘dungeon’ crawling roguelike-esque first person shooter made by Devy_Games, creator of many surreal titles with a few based in SCP. In this particular adventure, players board the dark and seemingly empty station of the same name with only a few orders; find survivors, recover valuables, and uncover the truth.
Now from my absolutely confusing intro, it might be obvious that this game is a tad difficult to summarize, but that isn’t completely true either. Players are essentially dungeon diving in to the lower regions in order to find those survivors of the accident while keeping their eyes peeled for valuable substances or information. Armed with a flashlight that needs batteries constantly and a tranq gun for emergencies, the only way that the elevator can be taken back up again is by fulfilling a mission, such as finding a survivor. That tranq gun will be coming in handy since the shutdown of the station allowed for everything held there to be running free in cargo, meaning that there’s some very angry terrors to contend with. Many of the larger monsters need more than one tranq to be taken out, so make sure to aim well or else those darts are going to run out fast; doesn’t help that the protagonist doesn’t have the best aim, so make sure to zoom in and prepare. If tranquilized, a robot can tag the body for pickup which grants currency to the player to be used at a later time. Now I’d normally say that this encourages players to choose between saving ammo and making money, but once those monsters get a whiff of the player they will hunt forever, so best to just take them out and collect the reward. Once the seven switches around the level are flipped, players can return to the elevator with or without the survivor and get the heck out. Saving that survivor gives one a glimpse in to what happened down there, and it’s rarely a pretty sight.
Those items that are collected can be used to craft many different things, primarily in combination to create ‘antidotes’ to lift certain status effects that can ail the player thanks to those pesky monsters. The combinations aren’t always apparent, so a little trial and error may be needed. Survivors can also help in understanding what some of the items do, but are mainly for giving context and backstory as to what is going on within this station, and it’s definitely not happy. The cargo storage is dark and oppressive, and since the flashlight is the only source of light still remaining players need to ensure that it has enough juice to keep the darkness at bay. The audio is almost lifted from the previous game in terms of tone and atmosphere, making me scared of my own shadow at times.
I think what summarizes Alien Life Labs best is the fifth gameplay tenant given: Experiences Will Vary. There’s so much going on within this title, yet it also says little enough to completely confuse anyone that wants to blindly run in and try it out. It’s a dungeon crawler yes, but with horror/thriller tendencies and a knack for survival narrative story telling. There are things it isn’t telling you, and the only way to find them is to keep delving deeper in to the facility. I can’t say this game will be for everyone — I’m not even sure it’s for me if I’m honest — but it will definitely offer an experience that will bewilder you within the first 30 minutes. It’s bizarre, it’s weird, and that might be exactly what you are looking for. Only one way to find out.
