There’s always been a sweet spot in the indie ‘scene’ for horror games. With titles like Amnesia and Outlast proving the genre is very much alive and up for grabs for those willing to weave tension and terror into the mix. Blinding Dark – a ‘First Person tactical Horror game’ from solo developer Radu Ungureanu – is aiming to keep the spirit of indie horror alive.

Blinding Dark will throw you into the darkness of an abandoned manor, filled to the brim with cultists, demons and apparitions. Unfortunately for you, amnesia has taken your memories, so don’t expect to know who you are or how you managed to end up in such an unfortunate predicament.

Not wanting to give anything away, Radu was tentatively offering me small bits of information behind the game’s story, revealing that “the main character is a psychic investigator. His passion made him re-discover the ancient and occult ritual of scrying (gazing into the past and future and also, on rare occasions, opening portals to other planes of existence). This discovery brought him the unwanted attention of a religious sect that was protecting the secret of these kinds of rituals. Things go bad and our character finds himself in this place, which seems to be an abandoned manor.”

Radu was unwilling to give away more on the story surrounding the game, but did admit that he was heavily inspired by Clive Barker’s Undying, drawing heavy influences from the works for the story and lore in the game.

What pointy teeth you have…

This isn’t a game about delivering pleasant baskets of cookies to the ghastly inhabitants though, and as awesome as that idea sounds the game will most definitely require you to defend yourself from the denizens of this mad house. Things won’t be quite as simple as swinging an axe in every direction though, as each monster comes with its own set of strengths and weaknesses. Radu explains that “The monsters have physical constitution, ethereal constitution or a mix of the two. Based on this, they will be susceptible/immune to certain weapons and items. For example, the Spiked Horror is a demon, so it has high physical constitution, thus it will be susceptible to damage from revolver and axe. While the Spiritform is a spirit and it has ethereal constitution, thus it is susceptible only to damage from the Egyptian Trap (a special trap that can only detect and damage spirits).”

This concept is what makes the combat mechanics stand out for me. The idea of making things more ‘realistic’ is far from groundbreaking when you think about it, but by restricting the player to this ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’ combat system you’re much more likely to take things slower and be more afraid of your encounters.

All he wants is a hug.

Even death isn’t the end of your troubles in Blinding Dark. In fact, it’s only just the beginning of your problems. As Radu explains, “In Blinding Dark, as all the pain and hatred piles up each time the player dies at some point all of this negative energy will transform into a demonic form of the player himself. A doppelganger if you wish. For this entity, the only purpose is to liberate itself from the continuous torture that consumes it and the only way to do that is to kill the one from which it originates, which is the player.  How the player manages to escape this new enemy is up to him to find out.”

It’s hard to resist thinking about what you will have to do in order to kill your ghostly twin, and as usual Radu was very secretive of the inner workings behind the game. It’s clear there’s more to the game than it would seem at first glance, and you can expect even more secrets to be hiding in the recesses of the manor.

Because the game is in such an early stage of development, Radu plans to release a free demo in the next month or so, containing a small demo area that showcases the combat and overall ‘feel’ of how the game is played. There are also plans to launch a surprisingly small Kickstarter campaign in February in which he hopes to raise $4000 to cover the costs of resources. A March/April window has also been earmarked for a tentative release date of the first of the six acts that make up the full game, with the rest of the acts to launch sequentially afterwards for PC, Mac and Linux.

© 2014, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

As a retired UT2K4/Counter Strike enthusiast, there’s nothing more attractive to me than a game that requires precision, quick reflexes and nerves of steel. Enter Deadlock, a combination of puzzle and platforming presented in a first person perspective with a beat-the-clock attitude slapped on top to keep things moving as fast as possible.

Your goal is simple – scale the numerous obstacles each level throws at you in an attempt to finish it in the fastest time possible. Alongside the obvious hazard of falling into the cataclysmic void below you, there’s also giant red force fields, angry mechanised turrets, and giant floating cubes of death to contend with. Did I mention there’s going to be tons of death?

Because of its current alpha state I was given access to three of the game levels, each one featuring more complex and challenging obstacles than the last. What starts out as a simple hop, skip and a jump across a few platforms in the first level soon turns into a spectacular weave of double jumps and lightning-fast dashes as multiple laser grids fly at you from every direction. Of course, we won’t mention the 20 ungraceful deaths and rage-induced shouting that came beforehand, but when you finally manage to pull off that perfect medley of agility the feeling of satisfaction is worth the pain.

I can recall one tense situation near the end of level three forcing me to run down a long narrow beam as laser grid panels flew by. With each panel sporting a slender horizontal gap too small to jump through, you need to try and aim your switch gun at a small pad off the side of these fast moving panels to flip the laser grid and squeeze through the gap. To top off that display of dexterous hell, half way down the beam of Beelzebub is a set of giant fans, with the express mission to knock you and your delusions of skill into the pit of death below.

Freaking lazers man….LAZERS

The scope of Deadlock isn’t entirely certain at this point, but the developers are planning on adding more content over the next few months including two extra levels, extra enemies, power-ups, collectable items, cutscenes for story mode and achievements. From what I was shown in the alpha levels, Deadlock is well on its way to becoming a solid entry in the indie market, where nail biting tension collides with split second precision in a beautifully presented world. Oh and one last thing, F*** these moving blocks!

Deadlock is being developed by 5 Bits Games, and is currently available on Desura in its alpha state. For more information on the game, head on over to their official page. 

© 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

The concept of video games as an artistic expression is certainly not a new one.  Aside from the obvious representations in the artwork or music, some games try to tell a story through the gameplay.  A prime example would be Braid which debuted a few years ago and told the story of the protagonist through the various uses of time manipulation.  Today, Bit By Bit Games has released Indie Games Festival 2012 candidate Trail, a PC game that represents life and death through platforming.

The hook of Trail is its representation of both life and death.  When you begin, your character is alive in a rather drab, minimalist game world with a solemn musical background.  As you hop from platform to platform, wall jump, and avoid dangers like moving blocks and electric arcs, your character will leave behind ‘memories’ represented by a blue-colored orb.  You have a health meter so you have to make sure not to be too sloppy when dodging the environmental obstacles.  The further you make it in the game before your meter runs out or you fall, the older your character is when you die.

The platforming in the game is pretty standard and simple.  You can walk (or run) and jump.  As with any platformer it takes a little bit to figure out how to properly control and time jumps from one platform to another, some of which move.  I think it would’ve been a bit easier to play with a controller rather than a keyboard, but after a few levels landing those jumps becomes a lot more natural.

Trail was not intended to be a dense, lengthy experience.  There are in fact only five levels to play that are randomly chosen.  It’s more of a concept project for Matthew Hanlon and Kieran Nee whom are both former Lionhead developers.  Perhaps that’s why the game is completely free.  It’s not the kind of game you’re going to play for a long time or keep coming back to for weeks or months, but it’s a bite-sized artistic representation of a concept that we are all familiar with.  There’s really no excuse not to go check it out for yourself by downloading it here.

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