The Land of Pain
released on Sep 13, 2017
Something disturbing appears in the woods. What can it be? You find yourself in a creepy and unknown place where something terrible happened. Dead bodies, blood, and people who died horribly. Who or what could have done all that? You will have to learn to survive as you face mysterious and disturbing events in a Lovecraftian atmosphere.
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Somehow generic, looks beautiful but I would suggest better storytelling.
This review contains spoilers
The Land of Pain is a game by indie game horror developer Alessandro Guzzo, whose only other game I've heard of is the spiritual sequel to this game called: The Alien Cube. I didn't know much going into this, I wishlisted it a long time ago because I'm a sucker for Lovecraftian Horror, then unwishlisted it because I lost interest; then my boy Melon played it and so I decided to give it another wishlist until ANOTHER friend of mine (Shoutout to Demenza's Gate (Shoutout to my dude, plug here: https://www.youtube.com/@DEMENZASGATE/videos) got it for me for Christmas. I have my thoughts on this game in the 2 1/2 hours I streamed it for a friend.
The Story here is an interesting one for me, and for the most part one of the only highlights of the game. You play as...well I don't know or remember, maybe they say it in game but I don't know. All I do know is, you play as a dude who goes to a cabin after his father passed to "take care of it". I'm gonna spoil some stuff here: After some chores, you wake up to a giant goofy metallic orb sitting in front of your cabin before you eventually get transported to another location. You break out of a cage in the middle of the woods only to discover that everyone's basically dead. You eventually learn over time through a somewhat genius twist that you've come to an alternate version of Earth and that these aren't just regular cultists/scientists. The beings that dwell here tried opening a portal to go to Earth before only to bring the elder god Cthulhu to their world. Wanting to break free, they've been trying to find a descendant to an ancient bloodline that helped repel Cthulhu and you just so happened to be it (though they've tried getting others since). You go through numerous areas of forest just to find the portal to get out. You succeed but then the cabin's burnt down and then you get kidnapped again by Cthulhu. Overall, I like the plot and I enjoyed the subversion that it gave. However, the plot for the most part is explained via notes, so if you didn't find that I'm not sure you would understand what's going on, and if that's the case I'm mixed on that part. Which leads to the next section.
The gameplay is a normal walking simulator affair for the most part. You walk around, solve some puzzles, read notes and etc. For the most part that stuff isn't bad though for certain puzzles I did get confused because it's not always laid out the best but for the most part it's fine. My least favorite part I feel are the chase sequences when you get chased by a shadowy whatever the f u c k monster thing; when you do get chased it falls into the common issues a lot of walking simulators have which is, the level design isn't always the best when it comes to these chases. One example: During the beginning, the first encounter I ran by and escaped it, got a puzzle solution and went to go back where the enemy automatically spawned right next to the exit. You can crouch but I never noticed it help much because their line of site seems to be from further back then you can tell and during that encounter I tried running around it in an arc only to get cut off. I'm cool with saying I suck at stuff but it just felt kind of tedious. Another encounter: The Mines. I try to exit it later on and the shadow thing patrols the entrance in a short loop, of which the only way I was able to escape was to jump over the fence from a high ledge in a way I'm not sure I was supposed to? So I usually just ended up dreading these encounters as they weren't particularly scary as much as it was frustrating. Other than that, gonna go to the final section:
The Sound/Graphic Design. The graphics are decent, lots of lush foliage and everything looks really good (though they get so big sometimes it's hard to navigate but nonetheless). I can't really say much of anything about graphics though the sound design can be funny sometimes. I noticed a couple of stock sound effects of horror stingers, the usual ones that people who don't have much of a budget use, and keep in mind there's nothing wrong with that! Game dev is hard work so I'm not gonna knock it and if anything I find it a bit charming. But with that in mind just get used to the stock effects. Also, there's no voice acting as much as there is just reading stuff so don't be surprised that for the most part it's horror stingers and paper noises.
I guess overall I'm really mixed on this one. I really liked elements of the story and the way I encountered it and was delivered I enjoyed it and I liked how certain things twisted a bit. Gameplay was standard but I was ok except the combat encounters and sometimes vague puzzles? I don't know, I guess I'll give it a positive but just know it's the usual walking sim with some annoying chase sequences: if you like those then it's perfectly acceptable and a nice 2 1/2-3 hour or so romp depending on if you get stuck on puzzles or use a guide. One of these days I'll have to check out the other game and see what I think.
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
The Story here is an interesting one for me, and for the most part one of the only highlights of the game. You play as...well I don't know or remember, maybe they say it in game but I don't know. All I do know is, you play as a dude who goes to a cabin after his father passed to "take care of it". I'm gonna spoil some stuff here: After some chores, you wake up to a giant goofy metallic orb sitting in front of your cabin before you eventually get transported to another location. You break out of a cage in the middle of the woods only to discover that everyone's basically dead. You eventually learn over time through a somewhat genius twist that you've come to an alternate version of Earth and that these aren't just regular cultists/scientists. The beings that dwell here tried opening a portal to go to Earth before only to bring the elder god Cthulhu to their world. Wanting to break free, they've been trying to find a descendant to an ancient bloodline that helped repel Cthulhu and you just so happened to be it (though they've tried getting others since). You go through numerous areas of forest just to find the portal to get out. You succeed but then the cabin's burnt down and then you get kidnapped again by Cthulhu. Overall, I like the plot and I enjoyed the subversion that it gave. However, the plot for the most part is explained via notes, so if you didn't find that I'm not sure you would understand what's going on, and if that's the case I'm mixed on that part. Which leads to the next section.
The gameplay is a normal walking simulator affair for the most part. You walk around, solve some puzzles, read notes and etc. For the most part that stuff isn't bad though for certain puzzles I did get confused because it's not always laid out the best but for the most part it's fine. My least favorite part I feel are the chase sequences when you get chased by a shadowy whatever the f u c k monster thing; when you do get chased it falls into the common issues a lot of walking simulators have which is, the level design isn't always the best when it comes to these chases. One example: During the beginning, the first encounter I ran by and escaped it, got a puzzle solution and went to go back where the enemy automatically spawned right next to the exit. You can crouch but I never noticed it help much because their line of site seems to be from further back then you can tell and during that encounter I tried running around it in an arc only to get cut off. I'm cool with saying I suck at stuff but it just felt kind of tedious. Another encounter: The Mines. I try to exit it later on and the shadow thing patrols the entrance in a short loop, of which the only way I was able to escape was to jump over the fence from a high ledge in a way I'm not sure I was supposed to? So I usually just ended up dreading these encounters as they weren't particularly scary as much as it was frustrating. Other than that, gonna go to the final section:
The Sound/Graphic Design. The graphics are decent, lots of lush foliage and everything looks really good (though they get so big sometimes it's hard to navigate but nonetheless). I can't really say much of anything about graphics though the sound design can be funny sometimes. I noticed a couple of stock sound effects of horror stingers, the usual ones that people who don't have much of a budget use, and keep in mind there's nothing wrong with that! Game dev is hard work so I'm not gonna knock it and if anything I find it a bit charming. But with that in mind just get used to the stock effects. Also, there's no voice acting as much as there is just reading stuff so don't be surprised that for the most part it's horror stingers and paper noises.
I guess overall I'm really mixed on this one. I really liked elements of the story and the way I encountered it and was delivered I enjoyed it and I liked how certain things twisted a bit. Gameplay was standard but I was ok except the combat encounters and sometimes vague puzzles? I don't know, I guess I'll give it a positive but just know it's the usual walking sim with some annoying chase sequences: if you like those then it's perfectly acceptable and a nice 2 1/2-3 hour or so romp depending on if you get stuck on puzzles or use a guide. One of these days I'll have to check out the other game and see what I think.
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/