Dread X Collection 2

released on Aug 21, 2020

A collection of short horror games by 12 different creators, all made in 10 days. Includes: Another Late Night (Secret Cow Level) Arcadletra (Vidas Games) Charlotte's Exile (John Szymanski) The Diving Bell (Bathysfear Games) Solipsis (Daniel Mullins Games) Squirrel Stapler (David Szymanski) Sucker for Love (Akabaka) The Thing in the Lake (Panstasz) To the End of Days (Scythe Dev Team) The Toy Shop (Mahelyk) Touched by an Outer God (Wither Studios) Undiscovered (Torple Dook)


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first game was way better than this

- Dread 2 💀 -
De lo mejor de su serie, su colecion es buena y aparte se historia base y puzzles son buenos de resolver.

Liked more games than the first one, mainly charlotte's exile, touched by an outer god and squirrel stapler






Toy Shop on the other hand was misery

The second Dread X Collection, released a little under three months after the first, brought a couple of iterations to the table. In addition to possessing twelve games instead of ten, Dread X II starts the theme of each anthology following a central theme: in this case, ‘LOVECRAFTING.’ It seems, too, that rather than each game being a playable teaser for a theoretical something more, each game was made to be a standalone experience. That’s not to say that some of the games here could become ‘full games’ — as of writing this, two of them already have — but I do believe that this approach was for the best, and might speak a little as to how this collection, as a whole, feels stronger than its predecessor. Perhaps it’s because the Dread X Collection has found its stride (though I will note that the devs coming back from the first collection, save one, seemed to… maybe put in weaker efforts here), perhaps the move to more complete experiences left the collection to feel more standalone than the first, or perhaps most people involved brought their A-game, but either way, this anthology is a step up from the first, and I easily enjoyed playing two-thirds of the games here.

Of course, another major iteration was the launcher for the individual games in the pack. While the first Dread X was simple enough — click on one of the dev logos, launch their game — Dread X II instead has a whole hub world, where you explore a house, solve puzzles, and obtain keys that then unlock each of the individual games in the pack. It’s made by Lovely Hellplace (who made Shatter one of my favourites from the first collection), and it’s generally pretty neat. I loved going through the house, from the colour palette using hues not generally used in PSX aesthetic throwbacks, to the little details: like the red eyes hidden on the statue, or how you can see rooms from outside that you can’t otherwise access. The puzzles feel fun and varied, with some being solvable from the room you find them in and others requiring you to scour the entire house. The story itself wasn’t something I particularly cared for, and there are maybe a couple stinker puzzles in there, but as a whole exploring the overworld was fun, and it’s really neat that they managed to add a wraparound, and that it doesn’t take away from the main exhibits of the anthology.

Which, speaking of:

SOLIPSIS:
A walking simulator where the value is more in the style than the substance. Gameplay-wise, while it tries to be more than ‘walk from objective to objective’ by adding little puzzles to solve along the way, they’re never more than a quick pitstop before you’re walking to the next point. The story’s… acceptable, but it’s mostly just a vehicle for the incredible vibes the game puts on offer. For something primarily painted with pixels, it’s surprising what’s been achieved here: from the way objects spin as they’re propelled in low gravity, the way blood splatters outward, and how the lighting reveals very little other than the immediate area around you, there’s a lot done here to emulate what it’d be like on the dark side of the moon, and it provides a rather desolate, kind of lonely atmosphere as you trudge across the landscape. I especially like how it transitions from pixel art to FMV as you enter a puzzle section — it does well to illustrate the steady decline of the protagonist’s mental state, and I love the use of the visual filter to make the change between artstyles feel seamless. I… probably wouldn’t rank this above, say, my favourites from the first Dread X Collection — because this game mostly is just about its vibes — but as a quick, memorable ten-minute trip into the moon, I’d definitely recommend this.

THE TOY SHOP:
Nooooooooot impressed. I’ll admit I was a little interested in the beginning, where the constant changing of visual filters (and the dissonance between the rotted, industrial interior to the brightly coloured exterior) implied that something was interfering with the main character’s perception — and through that, the reality around them. Once you're done with the tutorial, though all that gets jettisoned in favour of really drab, low saturation environments, with “puzzles” that consist of figuring out what you’re even meant to interact with and enemies that will hunt you down and kill you unless you sneak past them. 'Sneaking,' in this case, meaning the exact same walk animation, just a bit slower. I’ll admit I was entertained when the game very suddenly became a platformer… but then it becomes a shitty Unity shooter where enemies don’t make any noise until they’re right next to you and attacking (which, like, those particular enemy models come pre-built with footstep noises, why did you take them out?) and it’s even harder to see what’s even happening. It doesn’t even do the service of ending after the (very easily cheesed) boss fight — you go through another section where the game spams enemies at you and then somebody just dumps an entire fucking novel of lore telling you about the themes the game had tried to show during the first segment and also try to tie it into the theme of the anthology. Nooooooot good. It’s kinda funny to see the poor animation and the random, whiplashy directions it goes, but actually playing it? I maybe wouldn’t recommend that.

ANOTHER LATE NIGHT:
This, uh, wasn’t much of anything. It’s like a game that… pretends to be an entirely diegetic experience before slamming you full-on with meta elements, but it forgets that it needs to have something else of actual substance for the meta elements to actually effective. It also forgets that the meta elements also have to be good. And also that the story needs to be in any way coherent. I have no clue what even happened in this game. It’s meant to simulate you doing nothing on your computer at 3 AM, then you read a news article about how the game you’re playing [i]right now[/i] is making people randomly disappear, and then this red voice asks you how you feel about climate change? And then it kind of loops and does the same thing over and over until suddenly it ends? I get what it’s trying to do. I don’t think it does it well at all. Perhaps if there was an actual game the meta stuff was layered over then it…’s maybe on the right track to being effective, but as is… honestly if I’d written up this review any later than I did I’d have worried I’d forget about the entire experience. Maybe that’s the effect. Maybe the game’s reprogramming me to forget it ever existed before it comes time for the sleeper agent in me to wake up. Who knowsssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss?

TO THE END OF DAYS:
From the premise I was expecting this to be, like, a pre-apocalypse walking sim where you watch society fall apart in the wake of impending doom, and then when I started playing the game it told me to “press TAB to collect your thoughts” and I did it and I pulled a shotgun out. What followed was… a fairly fun shooter! It follows the sensibilities of something like Doom (or the many modern ‘boomer shooter’ throwbacks coming out today): there’s a certain arcadey feel as you travel down… what’s mostly a straight line and explode everything you come across with your gun. I especially like how even with only two enemy types you never quite get bored or overly used to combat, with encounters remaining fun and frenetic through the whole playthrough. I… felt like the melee was a bit useless? Other than the one part of the game where you need to break down a door to progress I always just used the gun instead, mostly because you’re encouraged to end fights as fast as possible and most enemies benefit from being fought at range. Other than that… this was a pretty fun 30-40 minute romp with some pretty fun plot beats. A pretty big improvement on the game this developer put into the last Dread X Collection.

ARCADELECTRA:
what if… we went on a date… inside the pt hallway…

SUCKER FOR LOVE:
I’m not particularly a fan of ‘ironic’ visual novels — as their attempts at ‘parody’ are almost exclusively surface level and help contribute to the mainstream Western misconception of what visual novels are actually like — but I think this one sticks the landing. If, mainly, because it actually goes beyond the premise of ‘haha, this is a dating sim where you date [x]!’ and feels that it was baked with something besides detached cynicism. While it does feel a bit too anime-inspired, and while it starts off trying to evoke the worst elements of its parody VN brethren, what follows is a fairly solid puzzle game that seems… more evocative of an Adobe Flash adventure game than anything, in terms of how you interact with the things around you. There are some sequences that are honestly effective, horror-wise, and I like how the game does discuss certain aspects of the Cthulhu Mythos and doesn’t undercut what’s happening despite the dating sim veneer. There are some issues with UI — anything that involved me dragging my mouse felt far more fiddly than intended — but aside from that I felt this was pretty decent, if not as strong as some of the others in this pack. Curious to see how the since-released full game expands on this.

SQUIRREL STAPLER:
Too long for what’s there, which is a shame, because I love this game’s general vibes. From the way things build up over the five in-game days, the charmingly scuffed pngs and models, and the random squirrel “facts” scattered across the wilderness, the game does a good job of emulating the feel of a hunting simulator while also greatly simplifying the mechanics, while also (like other games) made by this developer) possessing an immaculate ability to build this bizarre premise around the player and make it feel like the most normal thing in the world. Unfortunately, as is… I do think this should’ve been three or four days/levels, rather than five? Each day is a considerable time sink, as you scour the huge map for hints of a squirrel, then slllllllowly sneak up on them enough that you can get a clear shot, before you then through the process 4-5 more times until you’re done for that given day. Each of these days feels like it could take 20-30 minutes to complete — more, if you die and have to restart from the beginning — and while the story feels like it takes full advantage of each day to build up a climax, gameplay-wise it doesn’t feel like enough is iterated on for the length to feel justified, with days 3-5 in particular feeling like the same gameplay loop repeated three times in a row — the only difference being the number of dudes that try and chase you down. I still think this game’s fairly solid, just maybe one that wore me down a little bit, and I’m happy that the since-created full release seems to potentially address this, a glance of the steam store page indicating that the new content seems focused on deepening the existing game, rather than making it even longer. Hopefully when I play that I might actually see God.

UNDISCOVERED:
I like the way this game uses its ‘found footage’ angle in a way I haven’t seen before — how there’s both a cameraman and a reporter, and how you effectively play as both at the same time: the reporter in third person, and the cameraman in first person. It’s… done in a way that’s rather motion-sickness-inducing, admittedly, but it’s a fascinating way of controlling the game, and I like how the puzzles and the layout of the temple take advantage of it. Aside from that, I like the dynamic between the two characters, I like… the rather unexpected direction it goes, and I really love how you’re constantly moving forward as you move through the temple: both in terms of how that plays with the control scheme and how it shows you going deeper and deeper in. I really wanna play more of Torple Dook’s games. Hand of Doom was one of my unexpected favourites from the first collection, and while this pack is strong enough that Undiscovered isn’t that high, comparatively, that’s two for two. And a better record than… I think any of the other repeat devs so far.

CHARLOTTE’S EXILE:
I think the effect is a bit lost if you’re not the one playing it — I was streaming this with friends and one of these friends got bored and dropped out almost immediately — but man, if you’re the one in the driver’s seat, this is tense. The short of this is that you have to decode a cypher, and find out which symbols correspond to which letters. You have a book that’ll help you decipher each letter (and you can also use Wordle strats on unfinished words to process-of-elimination what certain letters can be), but there’s something actively converging in on you as you work on your desk, and the only way to get it to back off is take your attention off your objective and stare it down until it decides to leave, like red light green light. It’s genuinely tense: you have to be constantly on guard and can’t be distracted for too long, and it becomes a matter where you know what letter corresponds to a certain sigil, but you can’t see where that symbol even is on the list and you have to look up every couple seconds because you’re genuinely kinda scared about the thing coming in on you. It… loses quite a bit of impact when you find out that it doesn’t kill you if it reaches you, but even then that’s not the main draw: figuring out the code and solving the puzzle at the end still singlehandedly sells the game on its own. Overall really liked this. One of my favourites from the pack.

THE DIVING BELL:
At first I thought this was going to be, like, an Emily is Away-style horror game where you have to manually enter stuff into the keyboard while hiding from anything that comes into the room (almost like another Charlotte’s Exile), but then the game let me walk around the marine base and I realized it was a different — and, admittedly, less unique — beast indeed. I still liked it a good bit, though! This is mostly a mood piece: less about what’s in the base with you, more about how it feels to be all alone inside it. Sound design, the way most of the game is you figuring out how to navigate from one room to another, the short bursts of story that come through the typing segments, how you have to look at the walls to try and avoid whatever thing is looking through the windows... it really nails all the little things it wants to do, and at points genuinely manifests a little bit of fear about what you're going to find in the next room. Maybe not as ambitious in concept as some of the other games here, but it does itself with enough flair and execution that it stands out for the better, regardless.

TOUCHED BY AN OUTER GOD:
My favourite of the pack. So much here for what’s ostensibly only a twenty-minute game. It hits the old-school first-person shooter vibes perfectly: it feels arcadey in the way you chew through the waves of enemies, a bit of a power fantasy in how you can stand out, in the open, against the horde, and be able to go toe to toe against them, and yet still deliver frenetic moments where you’re being overwhelmed and have nowhere to hide. I love the EXP and upgrades system, here: the way the randomization means you’ll never have the same skillset twice — I should know, I managed to die, got sent back to the beginning, and came back with a way different build than I had initially — and how in that lens it almost seems roguelite inspired, with its focus on getting stronger along the way against increasingly more oppressive foes. Also it’s just frankly a little insane that you can just not take any upgrades and completely flip the way you play the game on its head. Also also I like how the game takes into account how many upgrades you’ve taken along the way. There’s just so much here. And even if it were just the base gameplay it’d still be super fun. Says a lot that even with a stronger cohort this is easily the highlight of the pack. Definitely wanna check out what else this dev has done.

THE THING IN THE LAKE:
…Sadly, despite four of the last five games in the pack being four of the top five games in the pack, I did not manage to end the second Dread X Collection strong. This game mostly just seems to be a victim of the short development turnaround. Which is a shame, because I like a lot of what this game’s doing. I enjoy the graphical style: even beyond how this is the same dev as World of Horror, I enjoy the way the top-down, grid exploration game looks, and how it visually harkens back to the Apple II era. I also really like how the same areas you go through as one character get repurposed when you go through them as another character, and the way it all kind of interconnects and comes together in the final chapter. Unfortunately… this is just super broken and unpolished, and not in a particularly funny way. Getting sent back to the beginning of the chapter/having to go through all the cutscenes again is way too brutal a punishment for death, especially given how cheap death generally is, with the hidden traps and unclear objectives in a game where one hit or mistake kills you. It’s glitchy, as well: there’s a point where you have to die to continue the game and I managed to softlock myself because the game told me “mash the keys” and the little movements I did while doing that were enough to move me… out of the way of the guy who was meant to come in and kill me. The monkey that provides the main threat is way too centralising: hearing his roar initially makes the process of getting out alive a total crapshoot, but once you start to get familiar with the game (or turn on easy mode) hearing his roar literally just means you have to stop what you’re doing, wait for ten seconds for him to actually appear, then leave and re-enter when he appears. It got tiring, even beyond how quickly this game kind of tested my patience. Would love to see a fixed and maybe expanded version of this game but as of now… it avoided the bottom three mostly for having promise but man, what a limp way to end off the pack.

FINAL RANKING
Touched By An Outer God > Charlotte's Exile > To The End of Days > The Diving Bell > Undiscovered > Solipsis > Sucker For Love > Squirrel Stapler > The Thing In The Lake > Another Late Night > Arcadelectra > The Toy Shop

Played the entire franchise for a video on my channel (End Credits),

It's a way more interesting hub than the first one, but I actually liked fewer games. The puzzles in the hub are interesting enough to make you keep going, but the games are not as good as the first one. The only ones I’d point out are: “Charlotte’s Exile” and “Touched by an Outer God”, which are great. The rest range from “meh” to “oh god why…”.

Still worth if you catch it on a promo.

The themes for this one was cool and I found myself enjoying more games here than the first collection. The diving bell was interesting, squirrel stapler was cool, solipsis was pretty neat too while super short, and sucker for love was really good. The rest were alright from what I remember but this was a huge step up from the first collection I'd say.