Don’t Scream (Literal Title Psychological Horror)
I finally had the opportunity to play Don’t Scream, which I saw snippets of several other gamers playing before I decided to jump in. It’s a walk-or-run horror experience set in the woods in 1993, where your trusty flashlight and video camera go out occasionally (pitch black equates to scary in videogames lol). You have eighteen minutes to survive; if you scream, you die, and if you think about just standing around for eighteen minutes, you’ll be standing for the rest of your life. The time does not start ticking until the character is moving. You start adjusting your microphone, which is a good feature, especially if you livestream. No one wants dead air for eighteen minutes.
Right into the nitty gritty of things you encounter buildings, soda machines, and other objects to maneuver around during the game and can see almost all the “jump scares” from a mile away literally. There’s no surprise when a figure pops up in front of you. Nothing was overly terrifying, even the unexpected “jumps cares”, the sounds, screams, footsteps behind you, or the thumping of dying birds hitting the ground. Now, this game may scare the pants off some people. I’m just a different type of person when it comes to horror. I finished the game for the first time in eighteen minutes with fifty-eight scares. Notice the game calls them scares, but I say “jump scares” because they are what they are, just like going through a haunted house during Halloween. It’s important to note that Don’t Scream is in Early Access and was released last October, made by a small indie dev, Joure & Joe, and is available on Steam for $9.99. For the price, the atmosphere, graphics, and audio settings, it’s an ambitious game with potential.
Written by Toni, Gatherer of Bones
Don’t Scream
Digital Cybercherries (developer and publisher)
4 / 5
