Demo Daze: The Bucket O’ Bad
It’s been a while! 2020 took its toll on everyone, including myself, and definitely this blog. Demo Daze is still going on, and strong, in the channel, and the latest edition was a feature of my March Massacre Madness sub-a-thon event. Demo Daze: The Bucket O’ Bad featured several random horror demos, although I fully admit that many of them were just flat out good, and not actually bad at all. Some others definitely fit the bill a bit more, but the one thing they all had in common is that they were all a blast to play, good or bad, and to me that is what matters in the realm of entertainment. If I’m having fun, that’s the end goal, and I had fun on last night’s stream.
Here’s a list of some of the games that I played, with a small snippet of thoughts on each one.
MEAT SHIFT
This was a pretty short horror narrative that took place in a pig slaughterhouse, where you worked as a line worker who had daily butchering duties. Screw up your orders once, and you’re done for. Some of the textures were a bit hard to look at, but otherwise it was a strong way to start off the night.
What Lives Below
I knew going into this that it was going to be a nautical adventure that involved killing giant eldritch creatures. The demo only featured one boss, which I never killed, though I got close to. Controlling the boat was honestly one of the harder things to do in the game, as you had to do it while trying to harpoon a great beast that did its best to tip said boat over in the water. Though rough around the edges, the concept was great and I’d love to revisit it down the road.
Coven
I’ve an affinity towards retro FPS games that liken themselves to Doom or Heretic, so this one already won me over. More or less, you’re a witch in the 1600s who was burned at the stake. Then, you’re resurrected, and henceforth you go on a path of vengeance against those who wronged you. Even mix of FPS and light puzzle platforming, another title I’d love to return to in the future.
Bloodmoon Church
A newer trend I’m noticing in indie horror tends to gravitate towards a heavier style aesthetic, one that lends itself towards the retro days of yore. The more popular trend is to resurrect the golden age of survival horror and go for a PS1/PS2 style, though some just go for a low poly count overall, almost always it just gives the game an extra nice feeling. Bloodmoon Church also throws in a dash of VHS aesthetic, and while I’m normally all for that look, I found the look of this game to be a bit overkill on the filters. Some options to lessen that would be nice. I also think I broke the game by guessing a combination instead of finding it organically, so I didn’t get too far in.
Code:Dino-H
As I said a bit ago, a big trend is going for PS1/PS2 era graphics, and also invoking some of the overall playstyle those games offered. Most of the games back then operated under the limitations of hardware, and my hopes are always that updated versions will overlook tank controls as something “cool” to include for nostalgia’s sake. This game seemed to give me what I want, though controls did get a bit frustrating from time to time… overall Code:Dino-H was just a fun version of The Thing with raptors.
(Not) a Love Story
Another favorite of the night, albeit a more abstract one, (Not) a Love Story adopts a confusing repeating gameplay loop influenced by P.T. The overall narrative wasn’t entirely clear, but the creepy visuals and jump scares definitely secured it a place within the column of creepy, uncomfortable horror. David Lynch meets sidescroller.
The Thirteenth Floor
This game was a walking sim with the retro style attached to it, and a ghost child to kick off the whole thing! This game had a lot of callbacks to Resident Evil, so it was clear the creator was a big fan. I got stuck in a part of the environment, however, and was unable to progress very far past a certain point. I may return to it in the future.. the story, albeit simplistic, caught my interest a bit.
Download The Thirteenth Floor »
Ollie’s Farm
Ollie’s Farm reminded me of something that could be included in the Dread X Collection, and I mean that one as a compliment. The demo starts off with you collecting corn for Ollie on his farm, 8 pieces to be exact. After doing so, you’re sent to another dimension where Ollie has… um… transformed… and you’re more or less running away from him with an ineffective shotgun to find pieces of a portal that you need to escape. This was only a short taste of what is possibly a larger endeavor down the road.
Escape
I always have high hopes when I enter into a game that promises a Lovecraft experience, but I’m almost always disappointed. Kind of what I experienced here, although it wasn’t necessarily a bad experience, overall. The premise was simple: you woke up in a basement, you found a switch to leave, and from there you’re chased down by a series of what I can only call possessed nurses. You collect objects along the way that allow you to actually view from their perspective where they are on the map, which was kind of cool. Plus, the noises and ambiance were actually a bit creepy.
The Parrot That Haunts Demons
This was probably the crown jewel of bad games for the night, but also the funniest one of the bunch. The Parrot That Haunts Demons was a semi-FMV styled game that only gave you a few snippets of narrative from a larger story that is not yet available. You played as a daughter whose family seems anything but conventional, and while the name suggests you’re going to get a good look at a demonically infused parrot, I think we only got to see the parrot once or twice in the whole demo. But, we also got to see our dad eating his own fingers, a strange haunting with floating furniture, and a Lorenzo Lamas poster that we uh… well, got intimate with. It’s an experience, to say the least, and goes up there with another game I recently played on Try it Tuesday: Flesh-Eating Geriatric Internet Predator.
Download The Parrot That Haunts Demons »
ATOLL: THE LAST GHOST
I think this game was trying to go for an experience similar to one you might get in WORLD OF HORROR, but this didn’t seem to have the well-fleshed out roguelite aspects that game is so well known for. ATOLL: THE LAST GHOST had more of an ethereal feel to it, with each environment begging you to explore it, fight ghosts or recruit them to your party, and learn the mystery behind all of it. I honestly had a hard time playing too much of this, it didn’t grab my attention like I’d hoped it would. Perhaps under different circumstances, it would have, but it didn’t mesh too well with the rest of the lineup.
Download ATOLL: THE LAST GHOST »
Pathogen-X
This is another PS1/PS2 throwback game, definitely inspired heavily by Resident Evil. The demo only included an arcade mode, but controls felt great, objectives were clear cut, UI was clean and familiar, and I can’t wait to check in with this game down the road to see how it comes along. High recommend to watch!
The Onion House
If this one sounds goofy… it’s because it was, but it was also pretty fun for a small amount of time. You start off by walking through a wooded area, until you approach a house. The house is littered with onions, both inside and out, with a small plot off in the backyard for family burials. Except… one of the graves is unmarked, and ominous. Once inside, and after a few puzzles, the game is truly afoot: a bell will chime, and you’re instructed to hide – OR ELSE. What else? A giant onion child. Yes. I’m sure this game goes further, but I only spent a little time with it before wanting to move on to other titles.
The Grim Stuff
This game was basically a big hide-and-go-seek game, though it seemed to suggest it may have larger questlines down the road. Within the first couple of minutes, you come across a naked, emaciated man in an alley, who asks you to retrieve for him a syringe that he dropped in a crack house. Already, I have a lot of questions, but… once inside the crack house, you’re definitely trying hard to meet your objective. The opposition? Zombie crack heads… I think? That’s what I’m going with. They’re fast, they’re ruthless, and they’re everywhere. And because of that, I didn’t get too far with this title either.
Dispatch
Easily my favorite of the night next to Coven, Dispatch is a very short narrative game about being a police dispatch officer, sent to a home to investigate a disturbance. Upon entering the house, an ominous force is definitely felt in the home, and as you walk through to check for signs of struggle and issue…. well…. honestly, this one, of all of them, is most worth a play. The runtime isn’t long, and it’s a tasty little treat for any horror fan.
GZ PT
I feel obligated by law to check out any and every PT clone, or recreation, that I can find. Thus, I had to check out this one, a faithful remake to the cult classic, recreated in the GZDOOM engine. Some of the aspects of PT were unable to be recreated, and some of them seemed hard to “trigger” so to speak – I specifically got stuck early on at the part where you’re to poke out the eyes of the photo, while the radio is telling you to “just look behind you” – a hair trigger for Lisa in this version of the game seemed to be turning around at all, so I kept getting reset. Regardless, if you never got to play the original PT, this is absolutely the best recreation I’ve seen yet.
Tomorrow – The Game
I closed the night with this game, which …was a hilarious treat. Apparently this is based off of an artist and song: the artist being jaye and the song being called Tomorrow. I’ve never heard of either things, and I wasn’t sure what the point of the game was beyond getting chased by this jovial juggalo throughout a subway station. There seemed to be no recourse for losing him, I wasn’t entirely certain of how to progress, and I still don’t know why jaye took my “bunney” or how to get it back. Funny, either way.
Download Tomorrow – The Game »