I tend to buy a lot of game bundles, partially because I want to support other indie game developers, partially because I want to sample a wide variety of games to see what’s out there, and partially because my inner magpie loves to have hordes of shiny games collected up. A couple of weeks ago I decided that if I was to keep purchasing these bundles, I really needed to sit down and give them all a go.
So I’ve been slowly working through my collection, and it occurred to me that sharing my thoughts on them would be a good way to generate more content for the blog. Further, I decided that I wanted to focus on what makes the game neat, because these games are the result of a lot of hard work and they deserve a little love.
So, I thought I’d start with Fibrillation, a short first-person psychological horror game. Took me about an hour to get through the game, and it was pretty creepy. It’s not a jump scare type of game, it probably won’t make you scream. There were some moments where I was concerned for the life of my avatar, but what made it so unsettling was how it made me feel my own mortality.
Given the title, I think I can say without spoiling anything that it’s about a man with heart problems, and everything about the game makes you feel it. Most of the game is spent moving through increasingly surreal environments, you do a lot of climbing up and down stairs, and the occasional running from nasty creatures right behind you. The whole time you can hear your avatars labored breathing and struggling heart. Sprinting is occasionally required and it’s always stressful as the breathing gets heavier, the heart more frantic, and you can’t go very far at all before your avatar has to rest. I could feel a sympathetic tightness in my chest as I listened to my avatar struggle.
I was really impressed by how everything came together to create a deeply unsettling experience, a feeling which stuck around for a while after I left the game. If you’re looking for something that will remind you that you’re going to die some day, and perhaps even motivate you to eat better and get a little more exercise, then this game is well worth a go.