Cease to Breathe (Point-and-Click Morbid Survival Horror)

 

Lol brutal, just brutal. I forget now where I came across this amazing game, Cease to Breathe, but somehow it popped up in the old algorithm, or perhaps it was an ad? I don’t remember, and it doesn’t matter. What does matter is for those of you out there who remember old text-based adventure games, like Voodoo Castle, or at least have heard of them, which then transitioned into the awesome point-and-click genre, with such greats as Uninvited, this one brings it to the modern era with old style, but tons of boundary-crossing storytelling and pixelated gore. Might even make you regurgitate your modern desires for graphics. Note the video below technically contains spoilers relating to deaths in-game, so if you want to move on and read for once in your goddamn life, go ahead.

   

Developed by a single sick fuck at Scribed Skull Studios, Cease to Breathe puts you in control of an unnamed narrator stranded in a car after a wreck. Once you exit, you approach a creepy mansion in the surrounding storm, where dwells unholy things that threaten your existence as you navigate the mansion’s various rooms, gathering items to further advance the plot. This is all while avoiding hideous undead like a corpse kid with a slash through his demented face, a woman with an upside-down cross carved into her forehead, and others. One highlight of this title, which takes its cues from a number of old classics, is the sheer number of items you can manipulate. In Cease to Breathe you can gather practically anything, which creates a more realistic atmosphere of horror since not everything has an actual use and thus puzzle-solving is far from obvious. Further, there’s a better sense of tension. Normally in games of this type, once the baddies appear you’re pretty much done, but in this case you have opportunities to escape and, further, the appearance of the creeps can be somewhat random, leaving you uncertain which door or hall, or anything really, is going to lead to the next awakened ghoul staring you in the face while making inhuman sounds. Sound effects, spot on awesome. My only complaint was a desire for a better soundtrack, but hopefully we’ll see that the next time around. Utilizing this kind of aesthetic to create horror is tough, because it often comes off as too nostalgic and stuck in a dead era, but Cease to Breathe can legitimately creep the shit out of you and, hey, you can move around body parts to make your own beautiful gorescapes. Have fun with that!

 

Cease to Breathe Official Steam

Written by Stanley, Devourer of Souls

Cease to Breathe
Scribed Skull Studios (developer and publisher)
4.6 / 5