The Xbox Live Indie Game: a curious creature that grazes out beyond the periphery of the average gamer’s gaze. Go ahead and make a snarky comment about the latest Avatar dog-walking simulator or the app collection replete with clock app. But buried amongst the dreck are some truly intriguing games; some are designed by novice developers dipping their toes in the water, others by industry veterans who just want to design something without suits keeping tabs or nagging about marketability or sales numbers. But with new games being released every day, where does the average person even start? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Armless Octopus is excited to partner with SideQuesting to award one XBLIG every month with Armless Octopus’ Tentacle Award for Aberrant Achievement. We’re bloody excited, and you should be too.
April’s Tentacle Award goes to Decay – Part 4, the final chapter in one of the platform’s most impressive series. Admittedly awarding Part 4 is a bit of a cop out since it’s basically an excuse to recommend the entire series, but that’s the advantage to being the one making the rules. Decay is a throwback to the 90s point-and-click puzzle games, like 7th Guest (which exploded back when people were mesmerized with the concept of playing a game with actual actors). While the game doesn’t use actual FMV, the graphics have a photorealistic quality that helps immerse you in the game’s dreary world.
You play as an unnamed addled protagonist suffering from amnesia that wakes up on the floor of a bathroom with a noose dangling above the toilet. As you explore the abandoned, dank apartment complex, you collect items to solve puzzles and discover clues such as newspaper clippings about a family murdered by a serial killer that help fill in your origin. All of the game’s elements combine to create an unsettling, oppressive atmosphere. The morose, dilapidated locations can unexpectedly change in subtle ways between visits and tend to be cloaked in shadows or drenched in a colored filter. They’re largely static, but the occasional sway of a lamp or rustling of a shadowy creature from behind a shower curtain helps make exploring this gloomy world a delightfully disturbing experience.
The sound design also defines the experience, with a moody soundtrack that knows when to remain silent and when to amp up the tension with bleak tones like something out of John Carpenter movie. It’s the absence of music on some occasions that allows the soundtrack to be so effective when it’s utilized.
The unnerving atmosphere should appeal to fans of games like Silent Hill, but the other major appeal to Decay is the puzzles. This is definitely not a game for the impatient player, accustomed to shooting first and second and interrogating smoldering corpses third. Decay is a slow, methodical game with puzzles that can be occasionally mercurial and often rely on a bit of trial and error. They include the standard use-an-item-to-open-a-door puzzle, deciphering codes and images, and picture manipulation along the lines of Assassin’s Creed 2. Puzzles tend to be more numerous and of higher quality as the series goes on, but the game occasionally falls into the genre pitfall of having to do everything exactly the way the designer planned, even when other ideas seem like they would logically achieve the same result.
The Decay series embodies what is so exciting about Xbox Live Indie Games. It’s a nostalgic adventure game that breaks the mold of the Telltale formula and presents an experience unlike anything else found on the Xbox. The first chapter is only $1, so anyone who enjoyed those creepy FMV adventures of the 90s really has no excuse to avoid this one. So dim the lights, crank the volume, and solve some puzzles.
For more XBLIG news, be sure to visit Armless Octopus.
1 Comment