Recent reviews by Snautovich

Poland, Russia, and Ukraine have become known in the industry for developing many games with a distinctly Eastern European feel, from larger productions like Wiedźmin 3: Dziki Gon and Metro Exodus to smaller indie projects such as this first release from Under The Sink Studio. Completely free-to-play, the spooky yet surprisingly wholesome Krypta FM will entertain you for about an hour of your time and must be finished in one sitting.

If the eerily atmospheric Funeralopolis: Last Day (check it out on itch.io) is a dystopian, exaggerated, surreal, fictionalised version of 1980s urban Poland, then Krypta FM is a somewhat romanticised yet more realistic vision of early 2000s rural Poland. Using the creepy premise of cryptid-hunting in the little village of Gozdary after sundown, this game is an ode to times that will never return. You start each night in the cosy safety of your bedroom, the old monitor lighting up your face as you listen to the radio and check what is new online. Once finished, you jot some things down in your notebook and set out into the dark of night to explore – armed only with a flashlight, a camera, and a hastily hand-drawn map. Guided by the broadcast’s host and comments left on threads, you look for signs of the abnormal.

This simple setting is executed flawlessly using retro graphics, immersive sound design, and little touches that will make this experience feel very homely to all Poles who lived through those times (the Maluch parked on the side of the road, the Polonez cars in your neighbours’ yards, the ambience of the countryside…). Other Eastern Europeans will likely find this quite nostalgic too, as well as people from around the whole world who remember spending hours on forums using their blocky old computers running on Windows XP. And if you are or have ever been into creepy stories and cryptid legends, then you will love this. It is essentially a walking simulator, but the protagonist can move really fast. There is also much more interaction here than in Dear Esther, but less than Firewatch or The Invincible offer.

What surprised me in particular is that Krypta FM is fully voice-acted and this is done to a very high standard! With the lights off and headphones covering your ears, it is really easy to get lost in this brief adventure that will take you back to the times before instant messaging and giant social media corporations became so ubiquitous in our lives. If you were born in the late 1980s or 1990s then this will have been the times of your childhood or teens, so expect a large dose of nostalgia here. I really hope the developers make more games like this, there really is nothing to complain about and I loved all of it. I just hope they will add Czech, Russian, and Serbian localisations, as I think Krypta FM would probably resonate with many folks from those countries as well.

Due to his particular writing style, H. P. Lovecraft’s works are not for everyone. Personally, I think Dagon is alright – it is better than The Call of Cthulhu, but considerably worse than At the Mountains of Madness or The Shadow Over Innsmouth. Arguably, it does have enough material to be adapted into an interesting little indie game or perhaps even expanded into a larger project. Sadly, you do not get either of those here.

Bit Golem’s Dagon: by H. P. Lovecraft is basically a recording of someone reading the original short story, with some lightly animated visuals to accompany it. The only interactive aspect of it is when the player chooses when they are ready for the next “page”, plus some optional trivia regarding the work and its time period that can be accessed. It is not badly made, but it honestly feels like this could have just been released as an audiobook or uploaded as a video to YouTube.

The most engrossing element of Lovecraft’s actual writings is that the readers are left to use their own imagination in order to conjure up the nightmarish visions he vaguely describes. This retelling of it feels like it misses the point a little. It would have been much more interesting to see an original take on this story instead of the fairly basic images we see here. If you are not going to truly adapt it then why bother making an adaptation? Also, more interaction and some exploration would be welcome too.

To Bit Golem’s credit, they do sell this as a “3D narrative experience” and even call it a “daemonic visual novel” themselves. Since there is no player agency and an extremely limited degree of interaction, this cannot really be considered a game. And no, I am not one of those people who hate on so-called “walking simulators”; The Invincible by Starward Industries and Firewatch by Campo Santo are both amazingly beautiful examples of how to do a game of that genre right. The problem is that Dagon does not even feature walking…

Sure, it is free, but even that feels a bit cynical as you are encouraged to buy the company’s other products in-game after you have listened through Dagon. So, it is more like a demo or a platform to advertise the studio’s paid products. Again, it is not terrible and if you are a diehard fan of Lovecraft then you might dig it, but I would recommend just playing the 2005 survival horror Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth instead – it is not perfect and quite rough around the edges, but very atmospheric and, you know, an actual game.

Hans Ruedi Giger and Zdzisław Beksiński are arguably some of the most prolific and famous artists of latter half 20th/early 21st century Switzerland and Poland respectively. Though they dabbled in a number of art forms, such as sculpting and photography, both are ultimately best known for the unique styles of their paintings. Ebb Software, a small studio from Serbia, was formed in 2013 and set out on the ambitious project to create a survival horror video game heavily inspired by the creations of H.R. Giger and Beksiński. The development process of Scorn was a bumpy ride, starting with an unsuccessful Kickstarter campaign in 2014, followed by the securing of some private funding in 2015, and a second – this time successful – Kickstarter in 2017. Originally planned to be released in two parts, after a number of delays the game was finally launched (in its entirety after all) in October of 2022.

Scorn is played from a first-person perspective, its gameplay consists mostly of exploration and puzzles with some combat mixed in. Ebb Software have chosen to rely on very minimalist design here, as the game features no text or speech; the HUD is absent from the screen most of the time, too. The lack of explanation regarding the game’s mechanics can make things a little confusing at times, and the puzzles are interesting and often difficult enough that you will have to do some thinking and experimentation. This would not be that frustrating, where it not for the checkpoint system – which leaves you with fairly few save points that are relatively far apart. This becomes especially irritating when you enter an area with hostile beings in it, as the combat is Scorn’s weakest side and not particularly engaging (which is a shame, given how fascinating the weapons as well as the creatures look, sound, and function).

The atmosphere, largely thanks to the brilliant audio-visual design, is by far this game’s strongest point. Its levels, though mostly quite linear with some branching paths and exploration (including a bit of backtracking) are fleshy, leathery, throbbing, squelching, decaying, osseous, and biomechanical… as are the nightmarish things that inhabit them. There is stunning attention to detail in practically every single aspect of the game, especially in terms of its visuals with painstakingly animated environments and characters. This results in an eerie and oppressive atmosphere with gruesomely terrific sound design and a great soundtrack, both of which complement the graphics. All of this, put together, is used by the developers to craft some truly revolting scenes that will leave you feeling thoroughly perturbed.

When I first started playing Scorn, I was only seeing Giger in the initial parts of the game’s distorted world. However, the more I played, the more of Beksiński started to appear in front of me. If you are familiar enough with each artist’s work, you will likely recognise far more of Giger’s style in the interiors and technology seen in each level, whereas most of the exteriors and creatures are primarily reminiscent of Beksiński’s dystopian surrealism. There are also some morbidly weird mechanisms here in almost every area, and the game’s laconic design helps to maintain an air of mystery around everything. Scorn is not a game for everyone, but those who appreciate such unsettling creations will be impressed.

There is plenty to admire here, so take your time sightseeing in each location to get the most out of the game. Except for the zones with enemies, as those are best rushed through so that you can avoid fighting as much as possible; though sometimes it is actually best to wait and observe from afar, since some monsters will crawl back into the scenery if left undisturbed and unaware of your presence. Besides Scorn’s annoying checkpoint system and mediocre combat, there is some minor stuttering when the game loads new areas, but this is infrequent and short enough to not really affect your experience. Overall, visually it is an extremely impressive production that leaves noticeable room for improvement in terms of gameplay. It works much better as an exploration and puzzle focused game than it does as a shooter.

In the end, how much you enjoy this game (and how willing you are to look beyond some of its flaws) depends entirely on how much you are into such surrealistic experiences. Many have tried to copy Beksiński and Giger, but almost none have managed to really capture their distressingly amazing quality. Scorn, with its purely singleplayer campaign that will take you between 5 and 7 hours to complete, is one such project that comes really close and you should definitely check it out if you venerate these two artists. Others might find it a little more difficult to enjoy.

Stanisław Lem’s Niezwyciężony (The Invincible) was first published in 1964. It is an engrossing tale of hard sci-fi that deals with the concept of “necroevolution”, and it explores a number of other ideas that were quite ahead of their time. When I heard that it was being adapted into a video game, I was over the moon. After finally playing through Starward Industries’ The Invincible, I am very happy to say that their take on Lem’s work does not disappoint.

It can be difficult to adapt a novel into an interactive medium like this, they are so different after all, plus you have to strike a fine balance between appealing to fans of the original work and accessibility for newcomers. The developers took an interesting approach here by creating something of a prequel to Lem’s book. This works well, as it means you need not have read Niezwyciężony to follow the plot, but if you have then you will notice plenty of familiar events (as well as direct references, such as a few lines that have been copied verbatim from the novel).

The premise remains almost the same, but the main characters are another crew entirely and the key thematic difference is the introduction of a political subplot. However, fans of Lem will be relieved to know that the focus of this game is still very much on existential musings about humanity’s place in the universe, along with the suspense of how things unfold on Regis III to keep you hooked in. The spooky soundtrack by Brunon Lubas, coupled with highly atmospheric sound design and visuals with fantastic first-person awareness, lends itself to creating a fascinating, retro, atompunk vision of space exploration that feels authentic and faithful to the author’s ideas.

When looking at the gameplay, the first comparison that comes to mind is Firewatch. It is an example of a so-called “walking simulator” done right, but The Invincible is even more interactive in the ways it allows you to explore its mostly quite linear, yet beautifully crafted environments. It also features another similar design decision to Firewatch, in that much of the storytelling and exposition of this thriller occurs via long-range conversations between characters in an otherwise very isolated setting.

Besides exploration, dialogue is actually the main venue for player agency here. Through conversation, you can make choices that affect the storyline and you are given opportunities to pursue optional scientific and philosophical discussions between the main cast. Those who enjoy hard sci-fi that deals with robotics, biology, geology, chemistry, and physics will love this too. At the same time, if you prefer to speed on, you can choose to follow more direct routes to your objectives and select the shorter options in dialogue, missing out on additional panels in the game’s wonderful comic book that chronicles Yasna’s findings as you play.

Some gamers always argue for more content and features, which is understandable given that you are spending hard-earned money on something and so you would like it to last. In this case I feel like adding anything more to artificially lengthen The Invincible would be detracting from it. It will take you anywhere from about 6 to 11 hours for a single playthrough, depending on how much exploration you do and the options you choose. In this time you get to experience something really special, especially if you appreciate the game’s setting and source material.

The lack of Polish voice acting seems bizarre at first, but this is something that Starward Industries has already commented on. They are a relatively small studio with limited resources, so they would prefer to wait until they are able to afford a cast of great actors that would do justice to Lem’s brilliance. For now, I am more than happy with the fantastic English-language performances, especially Daisy Doris May as Yasna the astrobiologist, allowing international audiences to enjoy this spectacular adaptation of an amazing novel.

My main complaint is that the game sometimes freezes for a bit when loading a new area. In my experience, this was not frequent or long enough to be a major disruption, but noticeable enough to be a little frustrating. More annoying was a glitch that stopped me from being able to interact with the gameworld and forced me to load my saved game. Fortunately, this happened only twice. For me the game ran with a smooth frame rate, though I know some people who bought it just after release had a bumpier experience.

Technical hiccups aside, this has quickly become one of my favourite games of the past few years.

Played it for the first time yesterday and I was really enjoying it. Launched it again today only to get a "data load failed" error - even though the game can clearly read my profile (shows player name and number of races done). Spent ages attempting to sort this out; I've tried everything short of reinstalling Windows to fix this, but nothing helped.

Turns out the issue has been around from the very start since 2013, when GRID 2 came out, and persists in 2023. Also, you can't actually buy this game digitally anymore as it's been delisted (I had it in my library for years). All of this is a perfect example of how licensing and a lack of technical support can ruin an otherwise very fun product.

I see no point in starting a new game since I'll just lose all my progress again...

Almost 150 Poles flew for the RAF during the Battle of Britain, which makes it the largest contribution of foreign personnel from that period. The most famous of these Polish units was the 303rd Tadeusz Kościuszko Squadron of Warsaw, the deadliest of the Allied fighter formations defending the UK, whose pilots became the subject of books, films, documentaries, a board game, a browser game, and now a video game. Sadly, unlike the skilled aviators of the Varsovian 303rd, the game dedicated to them is unsatisfactory – though not altogether terrible.

Though released in 2018, the graphics of 303 Squadron: Battle of Britain look about 12 years older than that or worse. Fortunately, the planes look nice and some detail has gone into the mechanic simulator sections for modifying your fighters. The gameplay is alright, but there are much better flying simulators as well as arcade dogfighting titles out there, and controller support is only partial. Moreover, some missions will glitch out on you, as if they were not already frustrating enough with the lack of variety in objectives. When it works it can be quite fun, especially if you are into WW2 aerial combat, but it simply is not engaging enough.

In general, this feels quite lazy and inadequate. At least they tackled the history with utmost respect. However, this actually affects the narrative negatively. As the developers from Atomic Jelly studio focus on characters that really existed (Jan Zumbach, Witold Urbanowicz, Josef František, John A. Kent, etc.), they are limited by what they can portray. There could have been a much more interesting and personal story told here, one of vengeful veterans who lost everything; fighting against overwhelming forces of the enemy who considered them literally subhuman, they fled so that they could live to keep fighting against Nazi Germany in other armies. At first treated with suspicion and conceit by their British allies, who initially disregarded their experience and could not understand their culture, eventually the Poles formed unbreakable bonds of friendship and brotherhood with the English, Canadian, and Czechoslovak men they flew with.

A story that follows the underdog as he narrowly escapes extermination, continues experiencing alienation abroad, and lets out all his resentful fury in successful devil-may-care flights against the Luftwaffe elite in daytime while drowning his sorrows in copious amounts of vodka at night as he remembers the loved ones he lost back home. There are seeds of this in the game, when the personality of its characters sometimes shines through, but for the most part they are just robotic exposition devices and walking history lessons. Readable notes left around the base add some more backstory, yet this also typically takes the form of textbook facts as opposed to the more personal touch that this game badly needs.

Fortunately, the protagonist Zumbach is voiced pretty well, but for some strange reason all the other primary characters – mostly Poles who should speak with Eastern European accents – are voiced by British actors who did not even try to play the role, they just speak RP! It causes even decently written scenes to sound absurd. Why not just make the Brits speak British English and the Poles (along with their Czech friend) with Slavic accents as they should? At least the rest of the audio design is acceptable, the sound effects are quite good and the music is actually great thanks to composer Paweł Błaszczak of Wiedźmin (The Witcher) soundtrack fame.

Overall, you get a fairly adequate amount of content here for a not so highly priced product: over 6 hour long campaign with 51 achievements and a custom flight mode. It is a shame then that most of this content is passable or worse. All those insipid intermissions of walking/cycling around RAF Northolt could have been used to develop the characters more. Instead of talking about loss and partying to forget it all for a moment, let us see Josef and Jan living life to its fullest when they knew each next assignment could be their last. Why tell us about the tensions between various groups or the love affairs of refugees when it could all be shown?

In the end it feels like wasted potential. If you are a diehard fan of WW2-era warplanes then you will get some enjoyment out of this, but for any others who want to learn more about the UK’s most effective foreign guardians I would recommend the Polish-British film Hurricane (known as Mission of Honor in the US) from 2018 or indeed any of the myriad of historical sources written about them.

Sure, it's cheap like borscht, but that's not the problem with it. It's even pretty nicely designed, quite pleasant to play, and clearly made with care – none of those are an issue either. What sucks is that it's basically a short intro to a longer story that was seemingly never started. Quite bizarre. If you're into space sci-fi like me then you might still enjoy it, but otherwise it just feels like a waste of time.

When I first saw the trailers I was intrigued by this game’s setting, being a sucker for post-apocalyptic deserts and historical fiction, so I decided to get it a few months ago but then it just sat in my collection for ages. Finally I played it and I am so very glad that I did because it has become one of my favourite indies.

Paradise Lost can be summed up as an amalgamation of some of the finest elements from BioShock, Wolfenstein: The New Order, and Metro: Last Light. However, it is also a “walking simulator”, which makes it quite different from all three of the aforementioned. At the same time it is much more interactive than the average product of this type and, although mostly linear, allows you to make choices that will result in some branching paths; this sets it apart from many other titles in the genre.

It is also absolutely stunning. The environments here have been made with meticulous care, the atmospheric audio design really draws you in (even the protagonist’s sighs seem almost deliberately paced), all the art made for the game is striking, and the soundtrack is simply haunting. I was surprised to hear absolutely fantastic and truly emotional performances from the voice actors, as some of these more unconventional projects made in Eastern Europe tend to really fall short in that respect (even bigger productions like the newer Metro 2033 games tend to have pretty poor English versions and need to be played in Russian for the full experience).

The world-building here is impressive as well. Sure, there is your usual outlandish Nazi science stuff that is par for the course in alternate history settings – along with a frozen post-nuclear wasteland, underground bunkers, and other things you might be used to. What is more exceptional is how believable, sci-fi tech aside, the game’s premise is. Nazi German plans predicted 80% of Poles were to be removed from the occupied country, most to be exterminated and the rest enslaved, which in reality the invading forces managed to partially achieve (about 17% of Poles living in German-occupied Poland were killed during the Holocaust with ~6 million dead and almost 2 million forcefully resettled).

Up to 200.000 infants were kidnapped from Poland and sent deeper into the Third Reich for medical experiments and slave labour; the ones “lucky” enough to be born with blond hair and blue eyes had their identities secretly changed so that they could be Germanised, raised by the SS to become members of German society. In occupied Poland itself schools above primary level were shut, use of the Polish language restricted, educated and influential groups executed, able-bodied persons forced to carry out hard labour for the Nazi war machine, and the local population frequently massacred. All of this is historical fact.

What Paradise Lost shows is the truly horrifying vision of a world where the war continued well beyond the 1940s, allowing fascist leaders to carry out all sorts of other sick plans as part of their twisted Generalplan Ost, until the global conflict turned into an atomic exchange. Consequently, the narrative – quite respectfully – deals with the grimly serious subject matter of genocide, racist pseudoscience, inhumane experimentation, and other relevant topics that most players will find disturbing. Intertwined with this is a more personal story of a surviving Polish boy who ventures beneath the ruins of Kraków. The excellent audio-visual presentation makes this a poignant experience.

Some will be put off by this straight away purely because of the gameplay. That is fair enough, it is not for everyone. There is a “run” button, but it increases Szymon’s movement speed marginally. This is not a game to rush through, though, as the way it is built from the ground up implores you to explore everything it has to offer. Most players will be done with this story in about 3 hours, but you might be able to stretch it to as much as twice that if you go for all the endings. The only issues I’ve had with the game were of a technical nature: an easily dealt with glitch and one more immersion-breaking bug. Some have also reported frame rate drops, but I have not come across this.

The asking price is low, especially considering how expensive games have gotten in general, but I understand people being cautious about spending any money on a less than 6h product. On the other hand, it would be criminal to not pick it up when it is on sale. If you appreciate a smarter and considerably more atmospheric journey than most of the first-person games out there then you should definitely give Paradise Lost a go.

After World War II much of Eastern Europe, particularly Poland and parts of the USSR devastated during the Nazi German occupation, were experiencing rapid industrialisation and a population boom that resulted in housing shortages. By the early 1960s the so-called “khrushchevka” (хрущёвка) was introduced to remedy this, named so after Nikita Khrushchev who had replaced Stalin, though it was also known as “wielka płyta” in Poland, “plattenbau” in the DDR, “panelák” in Czechoslovakia, “panelház” in Hungary, etc.

This type of public housing soon became one of the dominant forms of residential building in the Warsaw Pact countries. Although some of these housing complexes were brilliantly designed – with plenty of greenery and communal spaces, within walking distance of schools, workplaces, shops, parks, cinemas, and other amenities – others were planned to be “disposable” and in time gave birth to the dilapidated stereotype of the tower block. I’m telling you all this because it is important to the backstory and setting of Samosbor.

“Samosbor” (Самосбор) started as a Russian-language creepypasta shared on online forums, something like a combination of SCP Foundation and the Backrooms only with a Slavic twist to it. You live in a gigakhrushchevka – a dystopian exaggeration of Eastern Bloc high-rise buildings that extends endlessly in all directions. Samosbor is an unknown lethal phenomenon that periodically affects this hellish slum. You are a member of the Liquidators, an organisation that eliminates the consequences of Samosbor and is constantly replenished on a “voluntary-forced” basis.

The game itself is a pretty simple arcade experience, wherein you exit the relative safety of barricaded apartments to venture into the procedurally-generated corridors, staircases, rooms, and sewers of the gigakhrushchevka. There you must progress from one sector to the next, surviving against the Samosbor spawn. Your enemies are repulsively fleshy yet just varied enough to keep things interesting for a bit, your arsenal and resources can be replenished at kiosks using scrap, special weapons can be obtained from fellow liquidators you may find on your way, habitable sectors feature resting liquidators who exchange stories by the fire, you can even read messages left for you by other players and do the same for them.

Sure, the UI could be more immersive and some further variety to the environments and mechanics would do wonders for this repetitive game, but its minimalist audio design and disturbing atmosphere make for an entertaining Eastern European take on this scary trope. If you liked the Ukrainian games Stalker and Metro 2033, as well as their numerous Polish and Russian derivatives, then you will probably enjoy this too. It is nowhere near as great, but still quite entertaining and you will love it when your flashlight’s battery runs out in a pitch black sector.

This is like a love letter to brutalism and the Backrooms in indie form.

Much more than a walking simulator, this interactive exploration game hides a number of secrets. Simple though solid gameplay, captivating lo-fi style visuals, and quirky sound design combine to make a fascinating experience that is delightfully eerie and amusing. Those of us who grew up among the tower blocks of public housing estates, especially those built during the Cold War in Eastern Europe (and other parts of the world), will also find Babbdi somewhat nostalgic in an uncanny way, for it is a peculiar caricature of the negative stereotypes of such buildings.

It was made by two brothers from France, it is a perfect example of how cool digital art can still be made on a low budget (as opposed to all the cheap asset flips and other types of rubbish shovelware out there), it runs well, it only takes about an hour to complete if you properly explore it, and it is completely free. Give it a go and you might just enjoy it like many others did.