Horror Game Review: A Shift In The Night (2022, Muulk)


You have a job working the graveyard shift at a gas station in the desert.  Because you have been hearing things coming from the backroom, you go to see a doctor.  He tells you that hallucinations are an occupational hazzard for people who work overnight.  He gives you some pills to control them.  He says that you must take them every hour.

Feeling better about things, you go to work and discover that you left your pills at home.  Can you survive the night?

A Shift In the Night is a work simulator where you attempt to get through your shift without dying.  It’s not just the weird buzzing coming from the stockroom that’s a threat.  There are also customers to deal with.  Some of them are harmless.  Some of them are crazy.  One of them is definitely very dangerous.  Good luck guessing which is which.

You would think that surviving an 8-hour night shift wouldn’t be that difficult but I have so far managed to die in four different ways while playing A Shift In The Night and absolutely none of those deaths were pleasant.  The game uses graphics and sound effects to put you right in that gas station.  When I was 18 and fresh out of high school, I worked nights part-time to help pay my college tuition and this game captures the atmosphere of the night shift.  I always enjoyed the freedom of not having to deal with salaried management but I also knew that I had a greater chance of getting shot at night than during the day.  This game brought back memories.

Play A Shift In The Night.

Horror Game Review: Kiss of Beth (2021, Charm Cochran)


Cordero has just knocked on the door of your home.  He’s here to take your roommate Beth on a date.  While Beth gets ready, your job is to check Cordero out.  Have a conversation with him.  Find out what he’s planning to do on the date.  Maybe ask him about his family or his plans for school.  You could even ask to see pictures of his dog if you want.  Find out all that you feel you need to know about Cordero because, towards the end of the game, you’re going to have to make a big decision.  And that decision will effect not only how Cordero views you but also your relationship with Beth.

With the exception of the final few moments of the game, Kiss of Beth is a conversation simulator.  At the start of the game, it seems like you are just being an overprotective friend but, as things progress, it becomes obvious that there is more to your relationship with Beth than just friendship.  There are two potential endings, a good one and a bad one.  I’ve discovered that it’s a lot easier to get the bad one than the good one.

Kiss of Beth can be played in less than 15 minutes and, because of the number of choices and the multiple endings, it’s a game that can be replayed several times.  After you finish the game the first time and learn the true nature of your relationship with Beth, you’ll be surprised when you play the game a second time and see that all the clues were right there for you to see.

Play Kiss of Beth.

Horror Game Review: Friends? (2022, MBoone)


One night, Natt is woken up by his friends Josh and Stan.  Josh and Stan want Natt to step outside and have a drink.  Natt has not seen or checked up on Josh and Stan for a while.  Natt can be a friend and have a drink or he can go back to sleep.  Either way, he is going to end up in a bad situation.  Are Josh and Stan friends?  Natt soon discovers that there are consequences for not keeping up with people.

Friends? is a choose you own adventure style horror game.  You decide how Natt reacts to things and then you discover what happens as a result of Natt’s decisions.  The majority of the decisions appear to lead to Natt dying a horrible and gruesome death.  If you make the right choices, Natt can survive but it’s very difficult to get through the game without Natt taking on some damage, both physically and mentally.

A few typos aside, Friends? is well-written and the endings are gruesome and twisted enough to keep most horror game players happy.  It doesn’t take long to discover that there are very real consequences to making the wrong decision.  The game features multiple endings and multiple paths to those endings, making it a game that can replayed several times.

Play it and then check up on your friends.  They would probably love to hear from you.

Play Friends?

Game Review: Night Train (2022, Evan Farris)


In this Twine game, you wake up in a train.  The train appears to be deserted, except for you.  Outside the windows, everything appears to be dark.  Do you explore the train and try to discover why you have become a passenger and just where exactly it is that you’re going?  Or do you go back to your compartment and wait for an answer?

This is a short and simple Twine game, written in the style of an old Choose Your Own Adventure book.  You are given various options that you can use to explore the train and hopefully learn what is going on.  Make the right choices and you’ll find the answers.  Make the wrong choice and you’ll fall victim to a fate of Lovecraftian horror.  The game takes less than ten minutes to play and I do wish there had been a few more options but the game’s story is intriguing and it does a good job of capturing the player’s attention.  This game really makes use of a classic Interactive Fiction scenario.  You wake up with no idea where or even who you are.  You spend the rest of the game trying to answer those questions.  There are a few typos in the game but, for all I know, there’s probably a few typos in this review.  None of them are serious enough to really interfere with the experience of playing the game itself.

Play Night Train!

Game Review: A House On A Hill (2022, Devin Cummings)


There’s a house on a hill that everyone says in haunted.  Your friends Ingram and Ryan have dared you to enter the house, even though you might get sick from something you find in there or you might even die.  You can try to convince one of them to enter the house with you.  You can enter the house alone.  Or you can go home.

If there’s one thing that every good Interactive Fiction writer understands, it’s that you can get a player to do anything if you suggest that doing otherwise would make them a coward.  Saying “Go Home Coward” is the equivalent of making chicken noises.

Once you enter the house, you can search the rooms and you get a chance to make a few simple decisions about whether or not to do certain things.  Throughout it all, you are given the option to turn around leave.  You’ll get called a coward but considering what does happen if you stay, sometimes it is worth being called a coward.

This is a simple Twine game and it shouldn’t take anyone longer than 10 minutes to play it.  But there are enough different areas of the house to explore and enough possible outcomes that the game itself can be replayed several times.

Play A House On A Hill.

Game Review: Chase The Sun (2022, Frankie Kavakich)


Something has gone wrong with the world.  For six days straight, the sun has not set and there are reports of a storm circling the globe and flooding everywhere that it hits.  Europe and Asia are gone.  You are driving down a road in Pennsylvania.  You’ve been driving for three days and, during the entire time, the sun has been right ahead of you.

Your choices are simple.  Do you keep chasing the sun?  Do you listen to the radio?  Do you think about your family and the situation that you fled when it became obvious that something had gone wrong with the world?  Do you stop for gas or do you ignore the warning light?  Simple the choices may be but they will determine how you spend your last few days on Earth.

Chase The Sun is one of the many recent games to deal with the end of the world.  One thing that almost all of these games have in common is a fatalistic view of the end.  In almost all of them, the end is inevitable and it’s just a question of whether you can go out on your own terms or not.  Chase the Sun is no different but what sets this game apart from so many other games is that your choices actually do make a difference.  This is not one of those games where all of your choices all circle back until each game reaches the same conclusion.  Instead, there are multiple endings, depending on what you choose to focus on.  You have the chance to find some happiness before the world ends but it’s going to require making some smart decisions.  Make the wrong decision and your ending will be far less pleasant.  

The game’s descriptions are vivid and, most importantly, it’s not a game that wastes any time.  It’s a game that can be played and finished within 15 minutes but, because it has so many possible endings and branching storylines, it’s also a game that reward replaying.

Play Chase The Sun.

Game Review: You May Not Escape! (2022, Charm Cochran)


You are trapped in a maze.  You’re not sure why you are walking through this maze or why it is so difficult to find a way out.  At the start of the maze, a man named John Everyman offers to help you out but if he doesn’t think you’re being properly appreciative, he’ll leave you to figure it out on your own.

Try to make your way through the maze without getting lost.  I’ve played this game a few times.  It’s not easy.  It’s even a little creepy.  Stop and relax on a park bench but don’t fall asleep.  Climb a tree and discover a homey place to rest but watch out for the rain and the lightning.  Then there’s the graveyard.  Three of the graves are filled.  The fourth is waiting for you.  Find some rocks.  Break the security cameras and the LED signs that flash messages at you.  It’ll make you feel better but it won’t get you out of the maze.  At one point, you’re even given the chance to accept that the game is over.  Will you accept or will you keep searching?

You May Not Escape! was designed using Inform and it’s a throwback to the classic text adventures that I used to play when I was a kid.  Even the puzzle feels like a throwback.  Can you navigate a maze?  How many times to Scott Adams go back to that well?  But You May Not Escape! is much more difficult and rewarding than the old games that it resmebles.  This game requires some thinking.  It requires some imagination.  It requires that the player pay attention to what they’re reading.  The game is well-written and I appreciated all the little details that made the maze so memorable.  I especially liked the LED tickers the spelled out messages that were either menacing or encouraging, depending on how you read them.  You May Not Escape! is challenging but rewarding.

Play You May Not Escape!

Game Review: Crash (2022, Phil Riley)


Here you are, a member of the Repair Corps.  When a spaceship docks at Space Station Omicron-5, your job is to repair the appliances and make sure that everything is in ship-shape condition while the crew relaxes and does whatever they have to do on the station.

It’s like they say in the song:

Just another face in a red jumpsuit.
He did a good job cleaning up the place,
But his bosses didn’t like him
So they shot him into space.

Except, in this case, it’s not your bosses who send you into space.  Instead, it’s the fact that the space station explodes while you’re getting ready to leave the ship!  Now, the ship is hurtling through space and you’re the only one who can figure out the proper way to stop it before it crashes.

Crash is a classic-style text adventure, programmed with my favorite Interactive Fiction development system, Inform.  What that means is that you pretty much have complete control over what the main character does on the ship.  Walk where you want to walk.  Examine what you want to examine.  Try what you want to try.  Just know that time is running out.  Crash is well-written but it’s also puzzle-heavy.  That won’t be a problem for most people but, for someone like me who sucks at puzzles, it can be daunting.  Fortunately, the game comes with a built-in hint system.  Also, when you’re usually terrible at puzzles, that means you feel even more triumphant when you actually manage to solve one of them.

(Even if you did have to ask for a lot of hints.)

Be sure to ask the computer a lot of questions.  This game has an in-depth backstory and it’s actually interesting to learn all of it.  You’re just a repairman but suddenly, you’re in the middle of a galactic conflict.  It’s the sort of set-up that has led to many classic sci-fi tales.

Play Crash.

Game Review: Under the Bridge (2022, Samantha Kahn)


You are a monster.

The humans have wiped out most of your species.  Your life in the forest has been upended by their intrusiveness and their violence.  But there is a bridge, one that leads into a nearby village.  The bridge looks like a good place to live and to feast.  Even monsters need to eat and with villagers constantly traveling from one side of the bridge to the other, the bridge is the perfect place for you to hunt.

This is a Twine game that tells the familiar story of the Troll Under The Bridge from the point of view of the troll.  You have many reasons for not trusting human.  You also need to eat.  When the humans try to cross your bridge, will you allow them to pass or will you confront and maybe even eat them?  The decision is yours but every decision comes with consequences,

I liked Under The Bridge.  It was well-written and it featured memorable but non-intrusive visuals and audio that truly made you feel as if you were hiding underneath that bridge and waiting for the sounds of possible prey.  There’s a number of different endings so this is a game that can be replayed several different times.  Considering that so many Twine games seem to lead to the same ending regardless of the choices you make, I appreciated that your choices actually meant something in Under The Bridge.

Play Under the Bridge.

Game Review: The Pool (2022, Jacob Reux)


In The Pool, you are a socially awkward employee at a research facility that is investigating aquatic life.  You’re job is to keep the lights on.  As Dr. Chambers, the head of the facility, puts it, you “help to illuminate the world.”  But, at the end-of-the-month reception, you discover that there is something lurking in the facility’s pool and soon, the entire place is flooded with water and monsters.  You’ll have to figure out who you can trust as you try to escape the pool.

This is a choose-your-own-adventure Twine game.  One of my pet peeves when it comes to Interactive Fiction is that so many creators use Twine to create short stories where any choice you make inevitably leads to the same conclusion.  (Anyone who has played enough Twine game will experience the frustration of clicking on a choice, just to be told that your character has changed his mind and decided to go with the other option.)  That is why I am happy that the choices that you make in The Pool actually do make a difference.  Where you go during the reception and who you go with actually does effect the course of the game.  Because each decision also leads to different details about what is in the water, this is a game that rewards being replayed.  All in all, it’s a well-written slice of horror.

Play The Pool.