Platform: Steam
Genre: Adventure
Completed: 13/02/2024
The Painscreek Killings is a game that is advertised as a walking sim with investigative qualities, where you are tasked with uncovering who killed Vivian Roberts - a prominent woman in this sleepy little town.
The game also prides itself on not hand-holding you throughout the process. In fact, from the very opening, it encourages you to take plenty of notes.
The reason is, that there are no objectives displayed; no markers; no checklists - nothing. While there is a journal that stores critical documents, it is ultimately down to you to sift through the information and find clues to places of interest; key locations; codes, and much more. And it is also up to you to build a timeline and piece it all together; find the inconsistencies and ultimately unravel the mystery behind The Painscreek Killings.
The whole town is available to you, and as long as you find the right keys, you can explore pretty much everywhere. Which is necessary, because clues are everywhere. There aren't any people in this ghost town. They have long since gone. So all the answers are found in diaries, newspapers/clippings, and letters. Put all together they deliver an interesting conspiracy which kept me interested till the very end. I swear, by the end of it, I felt like Charlie Kelly from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
One of the things that stuck with me while playing the game, is the atmosphere. While you are alone in Painscreek, you always get the feeling that you are being watched. This is down to the choice of music, which is mostly tense and suspenseful. Or that sometimes things happen that make you question whether you are alone; like the lights going out or a padlock already being open. In some instances, you even may see what looks like a woman in the distance, but look away for a moment and suddenly nothing's there.
So were we alone? Was it simply a mechanic to make you feel a little uneasy? I'm not going to spoil anything.
It was genuinely a game I enjoyed. There were moments of frustration, don't get me wrong. Like when you open a top drawer and it's a shuffle game of trying to maneuver yourself into position to click on the item found inside. Or having progressed far enough and reaching a locked door, only to realize you don't have the key so it must be in one of the dozen buildings you already searched but obviously overlooked something (it was in a drawer I missed).
In truth, I wouldn't mind playing another game similar to this. I may even consider playing it with my wife or kid and we can then brainstorm the clues together.
Next up will be - Quake 2: Call of the Machine
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