Henry Sorren, I am finding, is a guy that created a lot of weird things. This game is one of them. There is much in this game that didn’t make sense to me, and I got the feeling that is the way it was meant to be. Each of the Pulp Horror Games has a feel and tone of its own, and this one is just bizarre. It is very creepy, and I feel like with headphones on in the dark, I would only have completed this game in pieces. As it stands, I haven’t completed this one, but it has a haunting spookiness.
Efec is you character and he is a vampire. He has, apparently, been asleep for a very long time, so long that he wakes up and there is a pool on top of him. Whatever, he doesn’t make any mention of it, Efec seems more focused on this hooded figure. What does the figure want? Well, this guy tells Efec that death has been hard on the town, and that Efec is their only hope. He has to go find and kill death. Efec responds, sure! Right after I get something to eat! Makes sense. If I was locked in some ancient enchantment for years on end, I would likely want something to eat upon waking.
So Efec wanders out into town to find: absolutely fucking nobody. Seriously, he says “nobody is in town.” For half a minute I thought there would be a guy sitting there like “my name’s nobody,” but yea, I guess they all just fucking died. The really eerie thing about this world isn’t the distinctly heavy side of the building to people ratio, but the ambiance of the world. It has the same film grain that other Pulp Horror titles seem to possess, but this one has Ave Maria playing the entire time. And it plays like it is coming out of some dusty old victrola in a haunted attic.
After wandering through the town like a groggy anemic, you come to a forest. In this forest is a well, a house – which gives Efec a ‘bad feeling – and a giant, shrieking spider. Approaching the spider reveals that someone stole its keys and that its kids are in danger. Whatever, man, just shut the fuck up. I will help you get free if you’ll only shut the fuck up!!! Wandering around, you eventually find the keys. This is a big relief since you have, like, zero visibility out there. Of course, you get to repeat the process as you wander through the spider caves. It feels like there is more distance to cover, all of it in pitch darkness. At times I found myself using walls to guide myself only to realize that I was walking into walls after a while. There are a number of doors with hidden keys to find and it is hard as shit; so, with the profound lack of visibility, I was unable to get past the spider caves. This game is creepy as hell, and fits October perfectly. Play it through at some point, I promise it will give you the jitters. This title is another artistic piece by the Pulp Horror Games crew, and it costs only 0.99$ on itunes. Check it out at risk of your own sanity!