Strange things these indie games. Eldritch at first glance it seems sheer trinket not worthy of special attention in the already rather painfully familiar Minecraft-style, but suddenly finds an almost perfect time machine that could take you 20 years ago, in the era of DOS, IBM PC-AT and Alone in the Dark. Not that funny crafts five years ago, and the original 1992, which “Guinness World Records” respectfully calls the First Ever 3D Survival Horror Game.
As in the Alone in the Dark, in Eldritch over your shoulder looms the invisible spirit of the father of horror stories about ancient monsters, and many creatures born gloomy genius of Howard Phillips Lavkrafa you meet in person, while wandering through the corridors of the dark dungeons.
Traditions are met – you come into a mysterious library. Rows of racks go up, tangled maze of stairs connects the floors. Open book on the table, and as usual you do not remember either of themselves or the events that led you to this strange place. One thing is clear – in order to get out of the library, you must find the three books, the artifact is a gateway to another world – a dungeon, filled with deadly traps, monsters and mysterious immortal statues of ancient gods.
Twin brothers David and Kyle Pittman, having worked in large companies (such as David managed to light up in the credits of BioShock 2 and The Bureau: XCOM Declassified ), decided to return to the indie development and mix in Eldritch three seemingly bad suitable one another ingredient – the mechanics Rougelike RPG, the gameplay 3D stealth-shooter and works of Lovecraft.
In Eldritch, as befits a good horror works, remains unchanged just a library, dungeons, which lead to three books portal is generated anew each time. Three-dimensional multi-level labyrinth, like a piece of cheese cut up passages, tunnels, ladders. You need to down, as far as possible, that is where the transition to a different part of the cave and at the bottom you will find an artifact that opens next book. That’s just to go down, sometimes have to go around, getting up a few floors up, etc.
At first everything seems to be a piece of cake. The first world goes over 15 minutes, you can tear the monsters with your bare hands, filling the pockets of coins, artifacts, keys to all the locks and other useful things. Dashing raid in the same style on the second dungeon ends in death and rebirth in the library. The pockets are empty, the characteristics of reset, the weapon remains on the corpse. The second, third, fifth, etc. attempts to terminate the same. Dungeon mercilessly. Now here came the immortal monsters that can only be stunned for a while, come to life behind your back statues of people, lizards and other nice animals.
At this moment becomes Eldritch stealth. Now do not all rush to the enemy, more logical to ignore them and sneak behind him. It is necessary to protect the keys, move stealthily peek around the corner and try to do as little as possible to catch the eye Aborigines. In the second world, you’re stuck for a long time – the cycle of death and rebirth only spurs try again and again. What are you waiting “in the pages of” thirds of the book let it remain a mystery.
The craze for old school graphics on hand Eldritch. The conventionality of scenery allows your imagination. And now a bunch of polygons becomes a deadly ghost and pixelated textures – dripping with moisture in the walls of the dungeon. Visually Eldritch really like Alone in the Dark, that’s only 20 years ago it was the most advanced at that time 3D-graphics.
Eldritch, like many indie games of recent years – it’s an experiment with the old visual style and new combinations of gameplay. The game can entertain and surprise at the time, but it still lacks something to perfection. Some are generated dungeons and session still runs deep enough.
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