Lone Survivor

[Korax]

Xtt0ZezljHk

2D adventure-gamey psychological horror. Just came out today for US$10 (or a $50 special edition). I haven't played it yet, but RPS seems pretty sweet on it.

Links and such on its homepage: http://www.lonesurvivor.co.uk/

A demo on Kongregate: http://www.kongregate.com/games/superflat/lone-survivor-demo

[TheLastBaron]

This game seems super cool, gonna pick it up. I like the graphics of it, wasn't there another game that came out a while back that had similar pixel art where it looks like a quilt?

[Lu]

I bet you're thinking of this guy, because I was thinking the same thing.

[TheLastBaron]

Yep, that was it

[shammack]

I've been occasionally seeing clips and screenshots of this game for a while, but it wasn't until I played the demo that I realized that the player character is wearing a surgical mask. All this time, I thought he just had a big grin on his face, which seemed weird for a horror game.

[Erkki]

Yeah, that mask is ridicule-ous.

[TheLastBaron]

Definitely thought it was a grin.

[Tanukitsune]

I just played the demo and as someone who is usually not that scared by games, what I played did managed to make feel very... unsettled?

I'm worried about the food and sleep factor, has anybody actually played the whole game? Is food very VERY scarce, so scarce you can screw up and have to restart?

[Sno]

When i first saw this trailer, i thought it looked awesome, just absolutely amazing.

Then somebody pointed out to me that the surgical mask looked like a big dumb grin, and now i can't watch that trailer without giggling like an idiot.

It's not really the game's fault, but the that dude's sprite probably could use a little tweaking. It seems like a very bad case of "once you see it, you can't unsee it."

[Tanukitsune]

EDIT: Nevermind, I figured it out on my own! But now I have no idea what happened?!

I had a great freakout moment when:

I saw a Thinman who started to grab it's head and for a second I thought it was crying and I was killing innocent people the whole time!

But:

Just what on Earth affects the ending? I got the green one and I'm not sure what happened, I think the girl was my girlfriend who died in the hospital, which might have drove the protagonist insane? Does giving the gun guy tonics do anything? Does getting the cat do anything?

I also had a few glitches, like getting a cooked meal that never disappeared, which really broke the game!

Edited April 8, 2012 by Tanukitsune

[toblix]

I've played this for a bit, and I still see a huge grin on the guy's face. Also, it sucks that this game tries to force a full-screen mode. I understand why there's no windowed mode, but the game looks terrible blown up to fit a large monitor. I managed to get a scaled down semi-windowed mode by cyberhacking some files, but I would much prefer an options menu that let me do the same thing.

[Tanukitsune]

I'm pretty sure that's because you shouldn't played horror games windowed, it ruins the ambiance.

[Tanukitsune]

For those of you that bought the game from his site before it was on Steam, here are instructions to get either updates through his site or a Steam key.

The poor guy feels bad for making a profit and will be taking down the special edition soon!

[a purple future]

the thing that sucks most about the fullscreen deal is that the text is obnoxiously huge and kind of hard to read because of it.

[toblix]

Okay, so if you see the grin, you will never unsee it. I've played for a good while, and still see it. Actually, I think it's just bad character art.

Also, I gave up. Having unlocked the basement floor, there were just too many monsters and too little ammo. The main problem for me was that the player had too many states that were badly communicated, and combined with the scarcity of resources I could never be sure what the right thing to eat or drink was, and whether I was actually doing the right thing or just wasting resources. It felt very much like an old-school RPG, which is fine, but not my particular cup of tea. I also never managed to orientate myself without constantly looking at the map, which was annoying.

What the game succeeded at was the oppressive feeling of dread and hopelessness, and that everything was dead, and there was no point. I guess just giving up sort of fit, then.

Oh, and if any of you have completed the game, could you give a little rundown of how the game goes on from after unlocking the basement?

[Tanukitsune]

I failed the first time I arrived at the basement too, I even had to restart but the second time I played I...

I figured out that flares made the fat men practically harmless, so the next run I saved all my flares for them and made it out.

Once you reach the motor and get it running, the monster chases you and if you managed to escape you can get outside, where thing can get easier since there is a place where supplies respawn and a place where you can trade tonics for ammo.

When you're outside you have reach a certain point and unlock it with some items, and I assume after this point the game changes depending on your ending?

EDIT: I forgot, it seems that it's possible to make a pacifist run, so maybe running out of ammo isn't the end? I remember my character freaking out when he did run out, though!

[Tanukitsune]

Am I the only one who cares about this game? I just got the Director's Cut on PS3 and I like the extra content, it's not that much, but since I only played it once getting every ending in this version was great.

 

You won't even be able to access the new content until your second walkthough, but it's still awesome.

[Stuart]

Am I the only one who cares about this game? I just got the Director's Cut on PS3 and I like the extra content, it's not that much, but since I only played it once getting every ending in this version was great.

 

You won't even be able to access the new content until your second walkthough, but it's still awesome.

 

I fucking love this game. Probably the best survival horror game I've played in years. I'd go more in-depth with analyzing it's story and mechanics, but I'm kinda worn out.

 

But yeah, fucking awesome game. GG