Hopping on super late to the party, but this was a very fun experience!! Some games were a little hard to play and actually ended up making me very nauseous, but I love the idea of having a kind of Telephone Game but with gamedev. Is it coherent? No, it´s very obviously split up into two very distinct narratives- one about Ms. Blanch, the other about rebirth and a haunted library. But that doesnt mean it wasnt a blast to play through and seeing what narrative pieces stick through longer than other (such as the ocean theming sticking around for a few games).
Absolutely excellent piece of creative media, better than or equivalent to any horror movie out there. The HPS1 community continues to deliver an insane metric of art beyond this world!
Since CHAINGED just came out, I figured I would repost the playlist from CHAIN. here is all 20 videos playlist with no commentary, im excited for the new one!
Overall an astounding collection of games, but a few (Organ of Eden in particular) are more or less completely busted to the point where the player is more likely to get lost for an hour and quit the narrative altogether than to actually persevere. When you fall through the floor AGAIN after your 3rd 30-minute attempt to munch all the scientists, meaning you have to slowly climb a stupidly long spiral staircase for an additional 20 minutes, no player without godly patience is gonna care enough to see the ending, leading to a disjointed experience of starting the next game.
I'm a bit late to this one, but am glad I gave it a shot. I played through every game, read all the logs. The presentation of the collection was especially fun with this sort of paranormal study of each disc. My only complaint was the lack of audio and mouse sensitivity controls between each game. I hope to see more equisite-corpse style jams!
This was awesome! I just finished playing it on stream, and that was honestly probably the most fun I've had streaming in a while. I love how it was basically just a huge game of telephone, but with games lol. My favorite thing was how Ms. Blanch (eventually Mrs. Blanch, congratulations on the wedding by the way ma'am) started out as just a normal lady, and then turned into a sea creature that had to pass some kind of test, and then the overseer of said test... In my opinion it just goes to show how a story can evolve over time as different people tell it... 10/10 my guys
The point is that the "story" in one game is continued by the person who made the next game based on what they understood from the game that was before theirs, so it just kinda evolves into a mess, but that's the beauty of it lol
I played this for my Twitch channel and it was an absolute blast playing it all the way through. We had so much fun trying to piece together all of the lore and who all the characters are. I didn't know that the devs couldn't communicate with each other during development, which I find really cool learning now! Despite that, I still feel the narrative got confused between Specimen #04 and #05, as well as Specimen #09 and #10. This could be because I don't fully understand the lore, but I'm confused as of how Mr. Floaty Head became to be and who the alien creature in containment becomes. Nevertheless, I very much enjoyed all of the developers, all of the games, and loved the narrative and story that it told!
If anyone is debating on playing the game or not, please try it out!!
This is such an AMAZING idea! Love the aspect of this anthology! It's so different and cool. I'm doing a series on it and played the first 3 games in my first video. Cant wait to see how this story unfolds! I'm HOOKED!
HPS1, to me, is very reference in horror games experiences like a short cult movies, but here is more ominous, because we are IN the narrative. Congratulations by the art, story and the narrative focus each game. I love it. Soon enough comes the second and third parts. Here it goes the first one:
Love the exquisite corpse style of this project very creative. Kinda confused about what happened between Organ of Eden and Day 11. Those ones didn't really connect at all :/
I just beat this game and overall it was an, Ok experience. Not to say these games were bad and reading through the comments I realized how this game works with each person only seeing the game before them. And sometimes that helps, hell I really loved the first part and see that Water Lady and her body adventures and I thought there was going to be more but it stopped eventually. Then kicking off to the second part of the Angel Eyes which I honestly really liked most of that part, but then it was hitting the end and it felt the games had become so far apart that it almost ruins the first part because it's so distant.
But to be fair, that is the purpose of the game to be a telephone game, but I feel bad for the second to last game because it felt so bland and it's supposed to be the game before the final game. And the finale game, Well it was cool. But it also felt like it ruined it as well? Like it felt like the game was trying to piece itself together but yet it doesn't really work because of the lack of a full narrative. Also, I do wish that the UI section of the game had a bit more revalance besides the Notes because that would have been cool.
But this does not mean people shouldn't play this game. Because honestly there are alot of good games in here, just maybe view the story as parts instead of one full one. ANyway good yall for putting all your hard work into this collections
We didn't really plan for a coherent story, there isn't really much of one, that's why in our trailer it's lore is that the government are trying to make coherent sense of it, it was all done in good fun.
I think the ending was made entirely separate of any story, and wasn't made to follow the game before it, haven't played in a while but I remember when I got to it I was in pain from taking so long to move haha.
When I made 15 I didn't think of making the story coherent, I just made the game loosely based on the last one, find books and these weird orb things which my brain converted to eyes chase you.
Glad to hear you had fun with it though, stay awesome :)
yeah, the two involving a library were probably the best ones considering they looked like actual effort was put into them, the only game that actually spooked me was the one that includes the "he saw me" thing.
Everybody put effort in, we didn't have long to make these games, only a week, everyone who worked on it was experienced but me haha, it was my first game release (game 15), but we had fun making it :)
Sorry to see you didn't enjoy it, we never had a planned narrative, it was more of a fun experience for us, an experiment, we made it in the same style of the telephone game, one person made a game in a week, passed it on to the next, who would have to play their game and make a game in a week based on that, then it'd carry on like that.
WOW! This is such a cool concept, and playing through all these microgames was so cool. It was so exciting to see how each new dev would be inspired by and remix the previous game. The best part of the game was seeing which bits of the story survived from game to game and witch bits were lost in the telephone game. I was consistently amazed by the diversity of styles, aesthetics, and game play mechanics, all linked together by a slick launcher and ominous supplemental documentation.
As for narrative, it seems like there were almost two separate arcs, one going from "Torch" to "Organ of Eden" and another going from "Day 11" (witch bears no obvious narrative connection to the previous game, though it has some thematic similarities) to "999,999". The first arc is wonderfully dreamlike while the second arc is more structured, both very interesting.
My favorite games were "Mrs. Blanch"(By far the scariest), "Avert Your Eyes"(What the hell is that filter, it's amazing! And I love the ominous lovecraft imagery mixed with snapchat text. Plus any game that can make you afraid while your holding a FLAMETHROWER is doing something powerful), and Scary Library (LOVE the art and the fixed camera made it so tense to round corners).
Overall, everyone who likes horror needs to try this.
thx devs for making this game, i loved it really much!! there are a few pros and cons but i absolutely loved the separate and unique atmosphere of each game!! the overall idea of making games without telling eachother is really interesting, i hope there is a part 2, but if not then its ok :) it brings me back to the old PSX scary games hehe, all of the 20 are top-notch!
Absolutely an incredible collection. Having a single narrative, even if it was loose, helped make this one of the best lo-fi horror collections I've ever played.
I don't know if it's been brought up before but I really, really enjoyed the look, and work that went into the launcher itself! The little details, the files, all a super nice touch! As for the games themselves, I loved how eclectic it was, being done by a different dev each with a different art / gameplay style. I found this game because I'm a corpsepile fangirl, but I enjoyed everyone's entry. Most I managed to complete, some I was rubbish at, sadly. Thank you for coming up with this! I had hopefully as much fun playing them as you guys had creating them :)
Quick notes on each game (as i play them through, in groups of 5)
1 - Torch. Great intro game. A lot of "haunted PS1" games don't capture what a PS1 game actually looked and felt like. they're just generic smashed-graphics games. This one does some work to make it look and feel right. It's playable enough and creepy enough to launch the series.
2 - Ms. Blanch - Again, great job at feeling like a dream or a nightmare of a video game. Also, a very good rhythm as the game gets, uh, darker.
3 - The participants - The first game I felt really popped with the "narrative path" element of this collection. Not what I had assumed would happen next at all. However, the flashing glitch elements were not necessary. The color-division and edge-of-screen tearing was glitchy enough.
4 - Emerge. A little more by-the-numbers. This type of game is what I expect from a project like this. I think the ending is great but there could have been other moments like that building up to it where controls were a little bit orthogonal.
5 - Drip. A completely unexpected experience; not at ALL what I expected from a horror game collection. I would have made it even a little more cursed. Solid feeling play.
6 - Dream Aether - At first I was a little taken aback by the lack of horror in the horror anthology entry but it was actually a nice vaporwave breather (get it?)
7 - Ball // Out - Tried to bridge the gap back to horror but I couldn't finish it because it was too hard. This entry raises the question of difficulty in "connected" anthologies like this, because perhaps I would have appreciated the next game more if I had finished it.
8 - (Can't tell the name) - A real pleasure of a game, capturing both the truly haunted/cursed PS1 vibe as well as actually working on the feeling of the movement and attack mechanics. Perhaps the game that most of all lets you develop a bit of skill in it (knowing when to backstep, for me, specifically, was a great feeling when I figured it out.)
9 - Swell - I liked the concept as a horror game concept, eating or being eaten, but even once I knew what I was doing I couldn't do it.
10 - Organ Even (I think? Hard to read) - Of course the best thing about all Alien videogames is playing the facehugger, right? Right. This combines that with a literally collapsing level geometry for an unsettling pleasure. A little hard to see where or how you're progressing though.
11 - Day 11 - Excellent, but perhaps unsurprisingly given the predecessor, it doesn't seem to be part of the narrative. However, everything in it feels like it could have happened in a PS1 game.
12 - Avert Your Eyes - The presentation of this really hurts the concept. What, flamethrowering floating, murmuring eyes in a cave isn't scary enough without a smartphone and pixellation? It is.
13 - (weird collection of symbols) - The second arcade style action game in the collection, this one a runner. The graphical style at first seems grating but as it proceeds you start to feel like you're playing a game that was found in raw code rather than designed. Really cool.
14 - (some kind of eyeball thing?) - I just got done watching a 3 hour video on Pac-Man, so it's great to see a horror/creepy version. Sticks around just long enough to be fun.
15 - 15 - Similar to the previous game (interestingly enough), the map is small enough that even finding "that darn last book" isn't too hard. Fun game with just enough pop-in to feel creepy.
16 - 16 - A nice little atmospheric point and click, a breather after a few "run run run" games. However, the giant eyeball ending...cmon. The digitizing candles are a really low key build, you can think of something better.
17 - Vale - Great lightning effects, good atmosphere. Again, this feels like the nightmare of playing a video game. I also like that you can move around inside the credits.
18 - Spooky Library - Again, this seems to not be connected to the previous game. i appreciate the new aesthetic, however, I have to say that the fixed camera angle makes death come...often without you really being able to see what kills you. Would love to see more of this one.
19 - Abraxas - Really solid....stealth (?) mini game. The ending's a good horror hook as well.
20 - 999,999 - A nice little showcase to close it out. Not a bad ending at all.
Overall thoughts:
* being a little stricter about endings and difficulty levels could have achieved the goal of the collection a little better
* the menu system, with the documents, faux disks, etc., is an absolute masterpiece!
* these games lack brightness and contrast features. i understand you want horror games to control these elements but this is an accessibility question for many users.
Best wishes, looking forward to the next thing from these creators.
thank you so much for the thorough write-up! it might not seem like much, but it really is super appreciated you took the time to address each game! <3 thanks for playing
In my opinion the difficulty was just right. Definitely something to be proud of since it would have to be tailored to fit the limitations in draw distance and the movement speed/pattern of the monsters. Nice job and good luck with what comes next for you!
So after playing all the games I would say that as an experience, this compilation of games was pretty good. Though I would personally stop playing at specimen #08. The story and games after specimen #06 start to take a turn for the worst and really become individual experiences and not the chronological interconnected single narrative that I believed it to be.
It kinda felt like a drop in quality at a certain point because different people make different games and tell different stories. So even if they had something to work with, it still may not be coherent or fun to play. And you can’t like tell people “What are you doing? Making a game about collecting books again? People have already done that.” Because they did the work and you have to take what you can get. Like at least they finished it and contributed to this work and that’s cool. Making a game is already hard enough.
I wanted to say how amazing the ui is for this game is though. I’m talking about the main menu for this compilation. It’s so smooth and easy to navigate through. The sounds do sound a lot like they came from metal gear and I’m not sure but they sound great! And they way the disk looks and the sound that it makes when it’s spinning is so cool. I think I’ll always remember how cool that is. Oh and I love the whole secret files and stuff when you look at the log notes. Yeah you know what, the sound design for this particular main menu is amazing. Like the log note section has these nice paper sounds and these hands appear as you look down the paper. It’s so cool!
Even though I didn’t like most of the games, I still think that chain is worth a play and one of the best things to have come out in 2020. For anyone who likes low poly, ps1 looking games, and a unique story from games 1-6 and 8, I’d say give it a try!
Had a really good time with the collection! Ran into some technical issues here and there but overall it did a great job of having a cohesive narrative over a span of 20 different games! Love the project and would love to see more like it in the future.
the final video, this game(s?) was extremely confusing and one trip after the other but also extremely enjoyable to the very end, even if there were some complications. I cant wait to see more like this!
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Hopping on super late to the party, but this was a very fun experience!! Some games were a little hard to play and actually ended up making me very nauseous, but I love the idea of having a kind of Telephone Game but with gamedev. Is it coherent? No, it´s very obviously split up into two very distinct narratives- one about Ms. Blanch, the other about rebirth and a haunted library. But that doesnt mean it wasnt a blast to play through and seeing what narrative pieces stick through longer than other (such as the ocean theming sticking around for a few games).
Absolutely excellent piece of creative media, better than or equivalent to any horror movie out there. The HPS1 community continues to deliver an insane metric of art beyond this world!
I honestly agree with you its an amazing piece of media with a lot of creativity
Excellent game!!
20 games one crazier than the other and all part of the same story.
This was a great experience, because of this game I met very talented developers, that I'm now following their work. AWESOME GAME!!!
this looks absolutely insane.
it's pretty much the videogame equivalent of telephone
Since CHAINGED just came out, I figured I would repost the playlist from CHAIN. here is all 20 videos playlist with no commentary, im excited for the new one!
Full Play NO Commentary Full Playlist
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLANFpp3d1ebGqoaOmxscY-GkMZqP2vXNJ
Overall an astounding collection of games, but a few (Organ of Eden in particular) are more or less completely busted to the point where the player is more likely to get lost for an hour and quit the narrative altogether than to actually persevere. When you fall through the floor AGAIN after your 3rd 30-minute attempt to munch all the scientists, meaning you have to slowly climb a stupidly long spiral staircase for an additional 20 minutes, no player without godly patience is gonna care enough to see the ending, leading to a disjointed experience of starting the next game.
To add to this, I found that Organ of Eden often had traps where you would get stuck in doorways, walls and had to restart from the beginning.
really fun, but maybe don't play if you're prone to motionsickness cuz i almost threw up several times
I'm having difficulty reading the cursive writing in the log notes for specimen 4: Emerge. Does anyone have a transcript of them?
loved all the games, and def loved how yall put it together
i managed to glitch through the floor in one, where you had to put signs around wells? fell out the world and didnt feel like replaying that one
sensitivity was really low sometimes also
but yea, great game[s]!
I'm a bit late to this one, but am glad I gave it a shot. I played through every game, read all the logs. The presentation of the collection was especially fun with this sort of paranormal study of each disc. My only complaint was the lack of audio and mouse sensitivity controls between each game. I hope to see more equisite-corpse style jams!
streamed it here:
Had a great moment, but sometimes the games had those groundbreaking bugs where you would fall in the limbo or glitch in the wall. Overall it was nice
heh, "groundbreaking". funny
This was awesome! I just finished playing it on stream, and that was honestly probably the most fun I've had streaming in a while. I love how it was basically just a huge game of telephone, but with games lol. My favorite thing was how Ms. Blanch (eventually Mrs. Blanch, congratulations on the wedding by the way ma'am) started out as just a normal lady, and then turned into a sea creature that had to pass some kind of test, and then the overseer of said test... In my opinion it just goes to show how a story can evolve over time as different people tell it... 10/10 my guys
want to play but the sensitivity is insane
this is a good game but anyone knows what the fuck is happening in the lore?
The point is that the "story" in one game is continued by the person who made the next game based on what they understood from the game that was before theirs, so it just kinda evolves into a mess, but that's the beauty of it lol
I played this for my Twitch channel and it was an absolute blast playing it all the way through. We had so much fun trying to piece together all of the lore and who all the characters are. I didn't know that the devs couldn't communicate with each other during development, which I find really cool learning now! Despite that, I still feel the narrative got confused between Specimen #04 and #05, as well as Specimen #09 and #10. This could be because I don't fully understand the lore, but I'm confused as of how Mr. Floaty Head became to be and who the alien creature in containment becomes. Nevertheless, I very much enjoyed all of the developers, all of the games, and loved the narrative and story that it told!
If anyone is debating on playing the game or not, please try it out!!
This is such an AMAZING idea! Love the aspect of this anthology! It's so different and cool. I'm doing a series on it and played the first 3 games in my first video. Cant wait to see how this story unfolds! I'm HOOKED!
*spoier warning!!! i managed to play the last game first cause im dumb but so far this is a great little game and expereiance
I think this is an unforgettable game, hahaha
thats so awesome i wanna make fried egg for u <3
hey that means a lot to hear. i think we'd all like that.
Why is that such a wholesome statement, I love it, I'm going to say that forever now
And final, I guess:
Final
Part 2:
Part 2
HPS1, to me, is very reference in horror games experiences like a short cult movies, but here is more ominous, because we are IN the narrative. Congratulations by the art, story and the narrative focus each game. I love it. Soon enough comes the second and third parts. Here it goes the first one:
Part 1
Love the exquisite corpse style of this project very creative. Kinda confused about what happened between Organ of Eden and Day 11. Those ones didn't really connect at all :/
only first game is truly a great one. i literally bursted into tears. what a great game. what an ending...
I just beat this game and overall it was an, Ok experience. Not to say these games were bad and reading through the comments I realized how this game works with each person only seeing the game before them. And sometimes that helps, hell I really loved the first part and see that Water Lady and her body adventures and I thought there was going to be more but it stopped eventually. Then kicking off to the second part of the Angel Eyes which I honestly really liked most of that part, but then it was hitting the end and it felt the games had become so far apart that it almost ruins the first part because it's so distant.
But to be fair, that is the purpose of the game to be a telephone game, but I feel bad for the second to last game because it felt so bland and it's supposed to be the game before the final game. And the finale game, Well it was cool. But it also felt like it ruined it as well? Like it felt like the game was trying to piece itself together but yet it doesn't really work because of the lack of a full narrative. Also, I do wish that the UI section of the game had a bit more revalance besides the Notes because that would have been cool.
But this does not mean people shouldn't play this game. Because honestly there are alot of good games in here, just maybe view the story as parts instead of one full one. ANyway good yall for putting all your hard work into this collections
We didn't really plan for a coherent story, there isn't really much of one, that's why in our trailer it's lore is that the government are trying to make coherent sense of it, it was all done in good fun.
I think the ending was made entirely separate of any story, and wasn't made to follow the game before it, haven't played in a while but I remember when I got to it I was in pain from taking so long to move haha.
When I made 15 I didn't think of making the story coherent, I just made the game loosely based on the last one, find books and these weird orb things which my brain converted to eyes chase you.
Glad to hear you had fun with it though, stay awesome :)
- Luke
my play through of this game the first episode, its pretty good if a little weird, but the stories do seem to connect in some way shape and form. I love how this game is made and its format, it certainly had me hooked
yeah, the two involving a library were probably the best ones considering they looked like actual effort was put into them, the only game that actually spooked me was the one that includes the "he saw me" thing.
Everybody put effort in, we didn't have long to make these games, only a week, everyone who worked on it was experienced but me haha, it was my first game release (game 15), but we had fun making it :)
Sorry to see you didn't enjoy it, we never had a planned narrative, it was more of a fun experience for us, an experiment, we made it in the same style of the telephone game, one person made a game in a week, passed it on to the next, who would have to play their game and make a game in a week based on that, then it'd carry on like that.
Oops forgot to add, the PS1 style doesn't really remain concrete in most PS1 styled games, it's more of a retro umbrella terms from what I've seen.
WOW! This is such a cool concept, and playing through all these microgames was so cool. It was so exciting to see how each new dev would be inspired by and remix the previous game. The best part of the game was seeing which bits of the story survived from game to game and witch bits were lost in the telephone game. I was consistently amazed by the diversity of styles, aesthetics, and game play mechanics, all linked together by a slick launcher and ominous supplemental documentation.
As for narrative, it seems like there were almost two separate arcs, one going from "Torch" to "Organ of Eden" and another going from "Day 11" (witch bears no obvious narrative connection to the previous game, though it has some thematic similarities) to "999,999". The first arc is wonderfully dreamlike while the second arc is more structured, both very interesting.
My favorite games were "Mrs. Blanch"(By far the scariest), "Avert Your Eyes"(What the hell is that filter, it's amazing! And I love the ominous lovecraft imagery mixed with snapchat text. Plus any game that can make you afraid while your holding a FLAMETHROWER is doing something powerful), and Scary Library (LOVE the art and the fixed camera made it so tense to round corners).
Overall, everyone who likes horror needs to try this.
Glad to see you had a great time with our collection! :)
i loved Dream Aether, played it too many times
Great idea! Is there any other project like this?
yes! this project was inspired by Experiment 12, which is a similar concept: http://www.geocities.ws/experimenttwelve/
thx devs for making this game, i loved it really much!! there are a few pros and cons but i absolutely loved the separate and unique atmosphere of each game!!
the overall idea of making games without telling eachother is really interesting, i hope there is a part 2, but if not then its ok :) it brings me back to the old PSX scary games hehe, all of the 20 are top-notch!
Absolutely an incredible collection. Having a single narrative, even if it was loose, helped make this one of the best lo-fi horror collections I've ever played.
I don't know if it's been brought up before but I really, really enjoyed the look, and work that went into the launcher itself! The little details, the files, all a super nice touch! As for the games themselves, I loved how eclectic it was, being done by a different dev each with a different art / gameplay style. I found this game because I'm a corpsepile fangirl, but I enjoyed everyone's entry. Most I managed to complete, some I was rubbish at, sadly. Thank you for coming up with this! I had hopefully as much fun playing them as you guys had creating them :)
#5 and #8 is absolute brilliant
Full Playlist - Full Playthrough- No Commentary
Quick notes on each game (as i play them through, in groups of 5)
1 - Torch. Great intro game. A lot of "haunted PS1" games don't capture what a PS1 game actually looked and felt like. they're just generic smashed-graphics games. This one does some work to make it look and feel right. It's playable enough and creepy enough to launch the series.
2 - Ms. Blanch - Again, great job at feeling like a dream or a nightmare of a video game. Also, a very good rhythm as the game gets, uh, darker.
3 - The participants - The first game I felt really popped with the "narrative path" element of this collection. Not what I had assumed would happen next at all. However, the flashing glitch elements were not necessary. The color-division and edge-of-screen tearing was glitchy enough.
4 - Emerge. A little more by-the-numbers. This type of game is what I expect from a project like this. I think the ending is great but there could have been other moments like that building up to it where controls were a little bit orthogonal.
5 - Drip. A completely unexpected experience; not at ALL what I expected from a horror game collection. I would have made it even a little more cursed. Solid feeling play.
6 - Dream Aether - At first I was a little taken aback by the lack of horror in the horror anthology entry but it was actually a nice vaporwave breather (get it?)
7 - Ball // Out - Tried to bridge the gap back to horror but I couldn't finish it because it was too hard. This entry raises the question of difficulty in "connected" anthologies like this, because perhaps I would have appreciated the next game more if I had finished it.
8 - (Can't tell the name) - A real pleasure of a game, capturing both the truly haunted/cursed PS1 vibe as well as actually working on the feeling of the movement and attack mechanics. Perhaps the game that most of all lets you develop a bit of skill in it (knowing when to backstep, for me, specifically, was a great feeling when I figured it out.)
9 - Swell - I liked the concept as a horror game concept, eating or being eaten, but even once I knew what I was doing I couldn't do it.
10 - Organ Even (I think? Hard to read) - Of course the best thing about all Alien videogames is playing the facehugger, right? Right. This combines that with a literally collapsing level geometry for an unsettling pleasure. A little hard to see where or how you're progressing though.
11 - Day 11 - Excellent, but perhaps unsurprisingly given the predecessor, it doesn't seem to be part of the narrative. However, everything in it feels like it could have happened in a PS1 game.
12 - Avert Your Eyes - The presentation of this really hurts the concept. What, flamethrowering floating, murmuring eyes in a cave isn't scary enough without a smartphone and pixellation? It is.
13 - (weird collection of symbols) - The second arcade style action game in the collection, this one a runner. The graphical style at first seems grating but as it proceeds you start to feel like you're playing a game that was found in raw code rather than designed. Really cool.
14 - (some kind of eyeball thing?) - I just got done watching a 3 hour video on Pac-Man, so it's great to see a horror/creepy version. Sticks around just long enough to be fun.
15 - 15 - Similar to the previous game (interestingly enough), the map is small enough that even finding "that darn last book" isn't too hard. Fun game with just enough pop-in to feel creepy.
16 - 16 - A nice little atmospheric point and click, a breather after a few "run run run" games. However, the giant eyeball ending...cmon. The digitizing candles are a really low key build, you can think of something better.
17 - Vale - Great lightning effects, good atmosphere. Again, this feels like the nightmare of playing a video game. I also like that you can move around inside the credits.
18 - Spooky Library - Again, this seems to not be connected to the previous game. i appreciate the new aesthetic, however, I have to say that the fixed camera angle makes death come...often without you really being able to see what kills you. Would love to see more of this one.
19 - Abraxas - Really solid....stealth (?) mini game. The ending's a good horror hook as well.
20 - 999,999 - A nice little showcase to close it out. Not a bad ending at all.
Overall thoughts:
* being a little stricter about endings and difficulty levels could have achieved the goal of the collection a little better
* the menu system, with the documents, faux disks, etc., is an absolute masterpiece!
* these games lack brightness and contrast features. i understand you want horror games to control these elements but this is an accessibility question for many users.
Best wishes, looking forward to the next thing from these creators.
thank you so much for the thorough write-up! it might not seem like much, but it really is super appreciated you took the time to address each game! <3 thanks for playing
You're very welcome and best wishes to all the contributors!
Hi I made 15! Finding the last book isn't too hard but it can be pain haha, but thank you for your view on it!
In my opinion the difficulty was just right. Definitely something to be proud of since it would have to be tailored to fit the limitations in draw distance and the movement speed/pattern of the monsters. Nice job and good luck with what comes next for you!
So after playing all the games I would say that as an experience, this compilation of games was pretty good. Though I would personally stop playing at specimen #08. The story and games after specimen #06 start to take a turn for the worst and really become individual experiences and not the chronological interconnected single narrative that I believed it to be.
It kinda felt like a drop in quality at a certain point because different people make different games and tell different stories. So even if they had something to work with, it still may not be coherent or fun to play. And you can’t like tell people “What are you doing? Making a game about collecting books again? People have already done that.” Because they did the work and you have to take what you can get. Like at least they finished it and contributed to this work and that’s cool. Making a game is already hard enough.
I wanted to say how amazing the ui is for this game is though. I’m talking about the main menu for this compilation. It’s so smooth and easy to navigate through. The sounds do sound a lot like they came from metal gear and I’m not sure but they sound great! And they way the disk looks and the sound that it makes when it’s spinning is so cool. I think I’ll always remember how cool that is. Oh and I love the whole secret files and stuff when you look at the log notes. Yeah you know what, the sound design for this particular main menu is amazing. Like the log note section has these nice paper sounds and these hands appear as you look down the paper. It’s so cool!
Even though I didn’t like most of the games, I still think that chain is worth a play and one of the best things to have come out in 2020. For anyone who likes low poly, ps1 looking games, and a unique story from games 1-6 and 8, I’d say give it a try!
Had a really good time with the collection! Ran into some technical issues here and there but overall it did a great job of having a cohesive narrative over a span of 20 different games! Love the project and would love to see more like it in the future.