Lake Haven: Chrysalis is a survival horror “homage simulator” game developed by German game developer Engrave Games, whose upcoming title “Lake Haven” is their first project that they’re currently developing. Advertised as inspired by Silent Hill and David Lynch, while I don’t remember where I saw this game advertised on (though it’s probably Twitter), these inspirations along with the term “survival horror” and “fixed camera angles” are stuff that rings the bells in my head. I ended up picking this up using some Steam gift cards around Christmas time to stream for a friend of mine today (along with SEPTEMBER 1999) and I had some thoughts on what’s going on.

The plot was advertised on the steam page with “Kansas Police Detective Zeke Reynolds is sent out to investigate the mysterious disappearance of Eleanor Robertson after she’s gone completely off the grid after 13 days.” Once you arrive, of course that’s when things get worse as Zeke finds Eleanor dead in the living room, her corpse staring at wildlife documentaries as it plays nonstop, covered in lacerations. Notes reveal that Eleanor has been having vivid visions and paranoid delusions which ultimately broke up her marriage with her husband James. Walking around the house also mentions a strong mushroom smell along with a door upstairs whose borders are covered in moving mold. Eventually after exploring the house (riddled in religious paraphernalia) and exploring the basement, you enter back in the house to find the body gone. Of course, you’re forced to gun down the corpse of Eleanor when Zeke finds her upstairs, shambling towards him in an attempt to kill him. Regardless, eventually Zeke finds a seal and goes down into the well, where he opens giant doors that reveal a long staircase down into the abyss, and what happens at the bottom? I don’t know to be honest as a giant A.I. face speaks to Zeke about presumably Eleanor’s death, and how the “Inner Circle” reached out to her as she felt empty and hollow. Eventually she went into a state of “Chrysalis”, which I assume is her being undead? Zeke walks into Shodan 2.0 only for it to shatter as a row of church benches and an altar stand behind her. Going to the altar, you pick up a strange piece of metal which when combined with the giant iron key, gives you the final key to enter the double doors in the basement (which can also be opened with a needle which provides you with a different easter egg which I’ll describe in gameplay). Exiting the chamber, you attempt to escape another encounter that surrounds you in red fog and have you run up the staircase as chains attempt to make their way out. Eventually, you enter the basement doors to find yourself trapped in a room behind bullet-proof glass, the red mist catching up to you once and for all. Zeke wakes up to find himself in a strange “Black Lodge”, where he finds a table with Eleanor at the end of it. She walks over and starts to whisper into his ear, putting him under a trance and having him write out an unknown letter. It then cuts to show a “Welcome to Lake Haven” sign and a blue car driving into the distance before the credits roll.

So what the hell was the plot? I genuinely don’t know what’s going on. Who is the Inner Circle? Why did the hallucinations pop up? Who’s Lewis and how did Eleanor die? What’s with the Silent Hill transitions and what’s going on with the Twin Peaks-styled ending? Truthfully? I don’t know, I could give you a half-a s s interpretation on depression but I’d be genuinely reaching on something that’s supposed to be vaguely confusing and also a short prologue. Hopefully in the future, when Lake Haven is finally released then we’ll understand a lot of these questions with the mushrooms and the hallucinations but for now, my thoughts were this. Decent plot, brings up interesting questions but confusing as hell in a way that makes me feel kind of mixed to be honest.

The gameplay, for a short prologue into the full game, is the usual for survival horror. You walk around the small farm house, collect items to be used as solutions to other puzzles and all the while walking through with the fixed camera angles (that also moves when it needs too of course). First I’ll start with the puzzles, though this is subjective because I suck at them anyways: for the most part they can be pretty easy though there was a time or two where I was stuck trying to figure out what I was supposed to do and had to look up a Youtube guide. They also don’t tell you this, but for certain puzzles or story beats you’ll have to examine inventory items like the book you find full of fairy tales. There isn’t much in the way of survival horror combat except one section and in that section you basically have infinite ammo as this title mostly focuses on the puzzle solving and atmosphere. The last thing I’ll mention here is that there’s two sets of easter eggs, one of them being two small statues that you don’t do anything with and just seem to be little figurines of Zeke. The second, more prevalent easter egg has you finding a needle in a haystack, which when taken to the basement and used on the final door brings you to recreations of P.T. and Silent Hill 2 which were pretty solid.

The sound design is pretty sharp and on point with sounds that could come straight from the Silent Hill 1 menu, or the sounds of the footsteps as you walk across gravel/wooden planks. Firing off your gun also feels pretty good, honestly just to sum up the actual sounds in this game: they all work pretty damn well in tandem with the throwback vibe it’s going for. While there’s no voice acting, there’s a pretty good save room track (posted below) composed by Survival Spheres and some tense tracks composed by pleasepleasepleaseplease that definitely captures safety in a survival horror environment. Other than that, nothing I can really go on except the sound design captures what it’s going for.

What can I say about it graphically that I haven’t already said before? It’s the chunky Playstation 1 graphics and I love them! I think for the most part the atmosphere of the game is what really sticks out about it? It’s a small area but it’s dark and musty and really gives off the old farmhouse feel, almost as if this game feels like it should be about aliens or something. However, I want to make sure to put this out there that for the most part, this game is NOT about feeling tense or creeped out. This is moreso the “cozy Silent Hill-esque horror” vibe of having you know that something around you went wrong, but besides that one aforementioned enemy encounter and that honestly tense escape sequence from the well? There isn’t really much here other than walking around and trying to figure out one of the many numerous puzzles you have in store for you. Speaking of Silent Hill, I find that the Easter Egg replicates the vibes of it pretty well, and you can tell the developers love and reverence for these kind of games as it basically oozes the old feeling from the first game even if it isn’t a 100 percent mark from the Silent Hill 2 “Dead Body Pose” easter egg to the chains and red mist escape (which looks just like an otherworld transition). It gets even more blatant when you reach the final room, which is just the Twin Peaks Black Lodge. Now I love Twin Peaks AND Silent Hill very much, though as much as I have reverence for them I feel like it sometimes leans on them a little too much without adding too much in the way of something “new”. However, maybe the full game will be that brand new experience we need? I don’t know, I don’t want to dogpile the game because the game does a pretty good job but the influences are blatantly obvious.

Overall, I love me an indie horror game with chunky Playstation 1 graphics and a reverence for Silent Hill, Twin Peaks and overall atmospheric vibes. To say that I didn’t enjoy this would be wrong, because I liked a lot of what it was going for and it definitely has me interested in the full Lake Haven game. Personally however, I felt like there were times where it just kind of went too into the homages without expressing its own interesting ideas other than what looks to be SHODAN hanging out in the basement of some farm house. However, it’s 2.99 and takes up about an hour to an hour and a half depending on guide use and overall puzzle intuition and if you’re looking for a short survival horror experience and/or interested in buying the prologue to what’s essentially a hopeful long term investment payoff with Lake Haven then honestly? Give it a try, it’s a solid start to what I hope becomes something of it’s own.


Links:
https://twitter.com/tingel155?lang=en
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1696960/discussions/0/3820780544818875257/
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1696960/discussions/0/3761102779889149051/
https://steamcommunity.com/app/952250/discussions/0/1733215626276570422/
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ipehqsxSjlg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2ch59LJEzk&ab_channel=SurvivalSpheres
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO-8zpc8DfM&ab_channel=pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYw6XAGxCIA&ab_channel=tingel155