So I played In Sound Mind, a First Person Horror Adventure. It was a good game but to be honest there's not much horror here. The game is very atmospheric and there's a lot of tense moments, but it's never really oppressive, if you get what I mean. The NPCs look a bit cartoony and there's very little violence, no blood or gore and no corpses (just some skeletons/bones).
The game is an homage to the Penumbra games (you know, what Frictional was doing before Amnesia). The textures, environments, the level design, ambient sounds, the music and even gameplay and puzzle design is very reminiscent of Penumbra. Except for one big thing, Penumbra has an extensive physics system and In Sound Mind doesn't. THe people who made In Sound Mind has earlier made Nightmare House 2,
two a popular horror mod
s for Half-Life 2 that I haven't played.
The story is that in the year 1997 you play a therapist who wakes up in the basement of his apartment building. People are gone, the town is flooded and there's a mysterious presence here taunting you and putting obstacles in your way. For some reason, his office is accessible from here, as is the apartments/houses of four of his patients. So you gather the recorded sessions of your patients and try work out their issues (and your own) in fairly big levels by solving puzzles and fighting enemies.
The enemy variety is pretty low
(only three different types, fast melee, fast ranged and slow powerful melee) but this is ok as there are
four "bosses" in the game. Each boss is fairly different from eachother. The boss AI seems to work a bit like the Alien in Alien Isolation, it seems to know in what general area you're in but will only attack if it detects you (some are better at this, some are worse). Also, bosses can destroy quite a bit of the environment while you're ability to do so is limited. .
Every "weapon" (I would call them tools) has more than one use. E.g.
the Pills will heal you and give a speed boost if you swallow them, but you could also throw them to distract enemies and if you throw them into a chemical spill they will cause an explosion (will clear obstacles and hurt enemies).
It took me about 20 hours to complete. All in all, a good game, especially if you're a Penumbra fan like me. Not particularly horrific though.
