psychological

DISCOUNT (579p → 99p) DISTRAINT 2 game review for iPhone and iPad: high-quality psychological 2D horror

08/01/2022 by

The protagonist of this game will repeatedly ask: “What am I doing here?” Believe me, the same question will arise for you. But an unusual and frankly incomprehensible game will gradually open up, give answers to many questions and allow you to spend time with it with some benefit.

Download DISTRAINT 2 for iPhone and iPad (App Store)

Our hero, Casey Price, already in the first part of DISTRAINT showed himself to be a doubting person who, due to his job duty, is constantly in a moral internal conflict. Casey has to be torn between decency and the thirst for material enrichment. On his way, there are ordinary people whom he has to trample. As a result, Casey plunges headlong into doubts, fears and despair. It is in this state that we find him in the prologue to the second part of the game. Casey has the gun to his head and is ready to pull the trigger. This is where the game action begins.

Our hero unexpectedly found himself in an interesting world, in which all actions will take place. Casey wanders the corridors in 2D. The controls are very simple – four cursor buttons are shown on the left side of the screen, but only two of them are responsible for moving to the right or left. The other two are needed to interact with objects. On the right side of the screen, there are three more buttons that are responsible for the character’s actions – talking, running, and others, depending on the scene. Setting aside the entourage, the game is a flat platformer with transitions between levels through doors and a few puzzles. They are simple and do not distract from the plot, forcing to periodically switch from feelings to logic.

Casey slowly wanders the corridors, hiding from hostile entities, looking for objects and using them. There are not even walls in this world – the hero goes into a gray trembling fog. The creator of the game hints to us that consciousness has no boundaries – there are only barriers set up by us.

But it is precisely the entourage that is that important component of the game, which makes it special. Casey has a long and difficult way to go, but not to a material prize, but to his Hope. After all, it was her that he lost, performing the work of confiscating property from ordinary people. The road to the goal will be difficult for our character. Too many doubts have accumulated in him. And his friends, enemies and obstacles are the abstract concepts of Greed, Fear, Reason, Consolation. Their humanization and dialogues with them allow you to establish communication with your own soul. Casey will have to plunge into memories, talk to her parents. It is important not only what he is doing here, but also how did he become so? The journey within herself will be a serious test for Casey. This is what the game is about.

Surprisingly, the DISTRAINT series was created by only one person – Finn Jasse Makkonen. He also has other 2D horror experience, Silence of the Sleep. The love of this genre has allowed a solo developer to create true original masterpieces with a deep storyline.

The story turns out to be difficult not only for our character, but also for the player. And this is not about the ability to quickly press on-screen buttons at the right time. Casey’s doubts and worries will certainly resonate in our souls. The proposed metaphors are obvious and universal, and they make you think. There is also room for drama in a psychological thriller. We will be told what it can cost to suppress feelings and complex emotions and how psychological trauma from childhood can affect later adulthood.

The game turned out to be more serious and deep than its first part. Nevertheless, there was a place in it for secrets and even humor. The graphic component has not changed. Music does not come to the fore, but complements the overall spirit of the game. And the original pixel art forms the atmosphere of the “horror” genre. It is no coincidence that the whole game of the hero is pursued by a monster that personifies precisely Fear. But dullness and despondency are successfully combined with bright and juicy locations.

DISTRAINT 2 is an interesting project, but it also has its drawbacks. The puzzles are too simple, which can make players who do not want to delve deeply into themselves get bored. And the frightening atmosphere is not formed by monsters or mysterious objects, but by choking thoughts and self-digging. But DISTRAINT 2 has much more advantages – with the help of minimalistic design, the author was able to create an atmospheric space, show the deep feelings of the protagonist and make us think about our own actions.

Download DISTRAINT 2 for iPhone and iPad (App Store)

See also:

DISTRAINT game – psychological adventure thriller for iPhone and iPad

29/08/2021 by ALOK DAS

The full name of the application is “DISTRAINT: Pocket Pixel Horror”, which means the presence of the original desktop version from which the game was ported to iOS and Android, as well as graphic design in pixel art style, which does not lose its popularity in the era of almost cinematic possibilities game designers.

Download DISTRAINT: Pocket Pixel Horror for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch

History of creation

The game was single-handedly created by Finnish developer Jasse Makkonen, a programmer, designer, soundtrack writer and screenwriter. According to the author, it took him less than a month to create DISTRAINT, after which the game was published on Steam and received excellent reviews from fans of the genre. The rapid growth in the popularity of such indie developments on desktop platforms makes the release of the mobile version only a matter of time, and now welcome – DISTRAINT: Pocket Pixel Horror for iPhone and iPad.

Plot

It is the storyline that is the main component of DISTRAINT. If in most games, one way or another related to the genre of “horror”, it is rather difficult for the user to associate himself with the characters, then here everything is very vital and familiar to almost every adult. With some reservations, almost each of us is sometimes forced to make a choice that faces the main character of DISTRAINT – conscience or money.

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So, the central character (you can only call him a protagonist with some stretch) is called Price, that is, “Price”, and his main problem is a catastrophic lack of money. He lives in a rather dilapidated rented apartment and is trying to get out of the debt hole by getting a job at the McDade, Bruton & Moore agency, where Price is promised mountains of gold and a comfortable life. The flip side of the coin is that the hero has to revise his moral principles or even abandon them altogether.

Price works as a “black realtor” and already in the first assignment must evict a pretty old woman, who is bursting into tears, out of the house for debts. Having stepped on the throat of his conscience, he fulfills a mission, which greatly disposes the leaders of the company, after which the plot inevitably rolls towards a very interesting ending, which, of course, we will not describe.

Gameplay

Actually, the declared “horror” in the game is not so much, mostly eerie hallucinations of Price, in which, for example, deceased parents beg him to stop trying to build happiness on someone else’s grief. The main part of the time the player spends in acquaintance with a fascinating plot, classic pixel hunting and the use of found objects, as well as solving not difficult, but rather interesting puzzles.

As mentioned above, DISTRAINT is an indie development by one person, who, moreover, did not spend a lot of time on its creation, however, the passage of the novel can take more than one day (on average, 4-6 hours of pure game time).

Registration

Due to the lack of any understanding of pixel art from the author of the review, we recommend relying on the reviews of fans of such games, which are unambiguous – DISTRAINT looks incomparable, and the general atmosphere of horror draws in the user literally in the first minutes of the passage. Many commentators even express their doubts about the possibility of creating such an application by one person in such a short time.

Outcome

Feedback from players about DISTRAINT: Pocket Pixel Horror is strictly positive, there are no dissatisfied with the creation of developer Makkonen, which means that the game can be safely recommended for installation on the iPhone and iPad.

Download DISTRAINT: Pocket Pixel Horror for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch

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The Bunker – interactive psychological thriller for iPhone and iPad

23/08/2021 by ALOK DAS

Interactive horror The bunker Is a joint project of two independent studios Splendy Games and Wales Interactive, in the creation of which the authors of The Witcher, Broken Sword and SOMA had a hand. The game takes place in an abandoned bunker in the context of the third world war, and the main role was played by Adam Brown, known from the films “The Hobbit” and “Pirates of the Caribbean”. In addition to him, Sarah Greene (“Scary Tales”) and Graham Fox (“Game of Thrones”) took part in the filming of the game.

Download The Bunker for iPhone and iPad (App Store)

The protagonist of the game, John, is the only inhabitant of the nuclear bunker who was able to keep his sanity only thanks to a strict daily routine. He performs his daily duties: he takes vitamins, checks the level of radiation and the efficiency of the bunker systems, tries to find working radio stations, and in the evenings he reads the Bible to his mother’s lifeless body. But when the alarm sounds, John will have to go beyond the usual surroundings and face the terrible secrets that keep the abandoned rooms of the bunker.

The game was filmed in a real bunker in Essex (England), and the game itself is presented in the form of full-fledged videos – there is not a single drawn fragment here. The bunker literally makes the player plunge into the life of the character and experience everything that happens to him in real time. The game does not have action, chases and shootouts typical for many projects, at times it may even seem boring, but given the specifics of the genre, this is not surprising.

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The gameplay is simple and straightforward, and solving puzzles is not difficult. By and large, the only nuance lies in the tangled corridors and monotonous rooms, so sometimes you have to spend a lot of time looking for the desired location. Each location has several objects with which the main character can interact. In general, the order of interaction does not matter, as the player will eventually have to use all the objects.

As he progresses, John will recall moments from the past related to his mother and other residents of the bunker. It is through this chain of memories that the main character will be able to understand what happened in the shelter. At the end of the game, John will have to make a decision that will affect the ending The bunker… The developers have provided two options for the end of the game, completely different from each other.

Separately, it is worth noting the masterful play of Adam Brown, on which, in fact, the whole project rests. Thanks to him, an atmosphere of human presence is created in the game, forcing the player to immerse himself and empathize with what is happening on the screen.

The bunker should be perceived as an interactive film that offers players the opportunity to feel like a direct participant in a psychological virtual thriller with a deep emotional component. Despite some flaws in the implementation of the gameplay and a relatively short duration (only two hours), The bunker Is a really interesting project that everyone should get acquainted with, if only because of its unusual concept.

The game The bunker for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch is available in the App Store at a price of 379 rubles. The application is localized into Russian (subtitles). It requires a device running iOS 8.1 or later.

Download The Bunker for iPhone and iPad (App Store)

See also:

DISCOUNT (449р → 229р) DISTRAINT 2 game review for iPhone and iPad: high-quality psychological 2D horror

13/05/2020 by ALOK DAS

The protagonist of this game will repeatedly ask: “What am I doing here?” Believe me, the same question will arise with you. But a non-trivial and frankly incomprehensible game will gradually open up, give answers to many questions and allow to spend time with some benefit for it.

Download DISTRAINT 2 for iPhone and iPad (App Store)

Our hero, Casey Price, already in the first part of DISTRAINT showed himself to be a doubting person who, due to his job, is constantly in a moral internal conflict. Casey has to be torn between decency and thirst for material enrichment. On his way are ordinary people whom he has to trample on. As a result, Casey is plunged into doubt, fear and despair. It is in this state that we find it in the prologue to the second part of the game. Casey has already put a gun to his head and is ready to pull the trigger. This is where the game action begins directly.

Our hero unexpectedly found himself in an interesting world in which all actions will take place. Casey roams the corridors in two-dimensional space. The controls are very simple – four cursor buttons are shown on the left side of the screen, but only two of them are responsible for moving to the right or left. The other two are needed to interact with objects. On the right side of the screen there are three more buttons that are responsible for the character’s actions – conversations, running, and others, depending on the scene. If you discard the surroundings, the game is a flat platform game with transitions between levels through doors and a few puzzles. They are simple and do not distract from the plot, forcing to periodically switch from feelings to logic.

Casey wanders slowly along the corridors, hiding from hostile entities, looking for objects and using them. There are even no walls in this world – the hero goes into a gray trembling fog. The creator of the game hints to us that consciousness has no boundaries – there are only barriers set by us.

But it is the entourage that is the important component of the game, which makes it special. Casey has a long and difficult journey to do, but not to the material prize, but to her Hope. After all, it was he who lost it, performing the work of confiscating property from ordinary people. The road to the goal will be difficult for our character. There are too many doubts about him. And his friends, enemies and barriers are abstract concepts of Greed, Fear, Reason, Consolation. Their humanization and dialogues with them allow you to establish communication with your own soul. Casey has to plunge into memories, chat with parents. It is important not only what he is doing here, but how he became so? Traveling within himself will be a serious test for Casey. This is what the game is about.

Surprisingly, only one person created the DISTRAINT series – Finn Iasse Makkonen. He has another experience in creating games in the genre of 2D-horror – Silence of the Sleep. Love for this genre allowed a lone developer to create real original masterpieces with a deep plot.

The story is not easy not only for our character, but also for the player. And this is not about the ability to quickly press the screen buttons at the right time. Casey’s doubts and experiences will certainly find a response in our soul. The proposed metaphors are obvious and universal, they make you think. The psychological thriller also has a place for drama. They will tell us what the cost of suppressing feelings and complex emotions can cost, and how psychological trauma of a child can affect subsequent adulthood.

The game turned out to be more serious and deeper than its first part. Nevertheless, secrets were found in it, and even humor. The graphic component has not changed. Music does not come to the fore, but complements the general spirit of the game. And the original pixel art forms the atmosphere of the representative of the horror genre. It is no coincidence that the entire game of the hero is pursued by a monster that personifies Fear. But dullness and gloom are successfully combined with bright and juicy locations.

DISTRAINT 2 is an interesting project, but it also has its drawbacks. The puzzles are too simple, which can make bored players who do not want to delve deeply into themselves. And the frightening atmosphere is formed not by monsters or mysterious objects, but by stifling thoughts and self-digging. But DISTRAINT has 2 more advantages: with the help of minimalistic design, the author was able to create atmospheric space, show the deep feelings of the protagonist and make us think about our own actions.

Download DISTRAINT 2 for iPhone and iPad (App Store)

See also: