The hype does not equal the results.
Don't get me wrong: I loved seeing the journey of the developer in his YouTube videos building up the game. It was a well designed and fun experience. I love to support indie devs. Especially when it comes down to such a small team, knowing a few devs of my own who are in the same circumstances.
Charles looks amazing and the atmosphere really works wonders with the soundtrack. I loved the mechanic of scraps necessary for both upgrades and healing your choo-choo. Riding around in the train is a lot of fun! Big map, too! Loved the little Slender nod!
The rest is a little bit more barebones: The NPC's didn't get the same polish as the environment, player equipment, or Charles; the voice acting is good, at best, but none of the characters have any facial animation or lip flaps, which pulls you out of it during dialogue. I had a few instances where the grunts shot at me during dialogues, which resulted in some funny deaths. Not that there were many. I barely used the sneaking mechanic. Kinda odd that there is a little bit of a zoom in the tilted leaning? No stealth on my end cause it's really easy to outrun the grunts, even in bigger groups.
I think the look of the NPCs are not at the core of this game's design, but a little polish goes a long way. Especially when you're working in UE and the rest looks very flattering.
Speaking of grunts not being scary: Charles. The whole selling point. At first he seems very menacing, but once you start to get used to the deaths not being a big deal with the amount of scrap you can find, he becomes a little less of a scary sight. Some hardcore mode would've been great? Witch Hunt did something similar but evokes this feeling of dread more often. Charles barely appears throughout the game, at least in my initial playthrough. Kinda felt more like an urban legend you were dodging randomly instead of his AI actively getting closer and closer.
It's nice that the deaths are almost an instant reset to a your last hop off of the train and that you only lose less than a handful of your scraps. It's not as if they're hard to find, I feel like the amount was even a bit gullible. It does, however, feel very satisfying to reach max level on your upgrades.
Climax was a little underwhelming and very short.
$20 bucks is a little steep for the playtime of a little less than 2 hours (in my case) with not a lot of room for replayability. You can lure out Charles as much as you like, but not a lot changes.
It was a great experiment, one with a very unique vision and well-crafted execution. Albeit a bit short, it's really the atmosphere that you're here for. Hoping to see a more fleshed out spiritual successor down the line, though.
Don't get me wrong: I loved seeing the journey of the developer in his YouTube videos building up the game. It was a well designed and fun experience. I love to support indie devs. Especially when it comes down to such a small team, knowing a few devs of my own who are in the same circumstances.
Charles looks amazing and the atmosphere really works wonders with the soundtrack. I loved the mechanic of scraps necessary for both upgrades and healing your choo-choo. Riding around in the train is a lot of fun! Big map, too! Loved the little Slender nod!
The rest is a little bit more barebones: The NPC's didn't get the same polish as the environment, player equipment, or Charles; the voice acting is good, at best, but none of the characters have any facial animation or lip flaps, which pulls you out of it during dialogue. I had a few instances where the grunts shot at me during dialogues, which resulted in some funny deaths. Not that there were many. I barely used the sneaking mechanic. Kinda odd that there is a little bit of a zoom in the tilted leaning? No stealth on my end cause it's really easy to outrun the grunts, even in bigger groups.
I think the look of the NPCs are not at the core of this game's design, but a little polish goes a long way. Especially when you're working in UE and the rest looks very flattering.
Speaking of grunts not being scary: Charles. The whole selling point. At first he seems very menacing, but once you start to get used to the deaths not being a big deal with the amount of scrap you can find, he becomes a little less of a scary sight. Some hardcore mode would've been great? Witch Hunt did something similar but evokes this feeling of dread more often. Charles barely appears throughout the game, at least in my initial playthrough. Kinda felt more like an urban legend you were dodging randomly instead of his AI actively getting closer and closer.
It's nice that the deaths are almost an instant reset to a your last hop off of the train and that you only lose less than a handful of your scraps. It's not as if they're hard to find, I feel like the amount was even a bit gullible. It does, however, feel very satisfying to reach max level on your upgrades.
Climax was a little underwhelming and very short.
$20 bucks is a little steep for the playtime of a little less than 2 hours (in my case) with not a lot of room for replayability. You can lure out Charles as much as you like, but not a lot changes.
It was a great experiment, one with a very unique vision and well-crafted execution. Albeit a bit short, it's really the atmosphere that you're here for. Hoping to see a more fleshed out spiritual successor down the line, though.