Carrion has now been released. It was an automatic purchase for me because of how much I enjoyed the demo. The full game is like the demo, but with more abilities and areas.
Based on reports/complaints that the game is short, I suspect that I’m about halfway through. (Personally, I don’t care how long the game ends up being.) The puzzles and action parts are never terribly challenging, but I have had to stop and think in places.
“Reverse horror” isn’t a new concept, of course. I played a lot of Rampage in the arcade, and there’s also that recent game that I haven’t tried where you play as a shark and eat people. And, of course, there’s one of my favorite games in recent years that I can’t name in this context without doing a disservice to anyone who hasn’t played it yet.
At any rate, I feel confident recommending Carrion even though I have not yet reached the end.
Day one purchase, hoping to dig into it over the weekend.
These days a game being too short is a massive plus. Keep your ideas succinct and dense. I just want to embody a disgusting, formless, organic mass ever since I was horribly scarred by that scene in Akira. A certain other indie game was a step towards fulfilling this desire.
Yes, that sequence in that game we are not naming sure was an unexpected delight. Every time I think about it, I remember how glad I am that it exists.
i am enjoying being an angry worm, it helps that it’s on game pass so i didnt have to actually pay 20 coins for it
i love the freedom of movement u get with the mouse controls, u rly r that Beast
it reminds me of playing flash games as a kid
tbh im probably going to forget about it quick unless something really interesting or shocking happens at some point, Inside comes to mind
I’ve finished this game now and (I think) seen everything there is to see. My total time is six hours, though that includes a couple instances of leaving the game running while going into the other room to do something.
One thing that I think improves the experience is to turn off the HUD (after becoming familiar with the controls, maybe). The drawback is that the explanations of your upgrades count as HUD. I discovered the option after I had collected enough of them that it didn’t really matter.
Since nothing in this thread so far shows what the game actually looks like, here are a few screenshots I took just now that don’t really spoil anything:
I’m loving this. I started it last night and have it paused right now but I don’t know how long I’ve been playing. I think I’m pretty far along though, I’m at what I’m assuming is full-size (three size levels). I have 3 of the containment upgrades. I love that finding these are optional but still give you new/upgraded abilities.
Combat gets kind of hard later on when you start facing multiple enemies but that might be because I’m using a controller (playing on Xbox). Maybe I should plug in a mouse/keyboard.
Anyway I love the visual look and style. Seeing the tentacles shoot out to latch onto things while moving is really cool and kind of how I imagined my ideal Spawn game to work, with a movement option to move Spawn using just the cape and chains of his costume.
Also really like how there’s no map screen to tell you exactly where you are in the world. Amazingly I’ve not had much problem with getting lost or figuring out where to go next despite taking time to backtrack and look for containment units in areas I’d already completed.
I finished this just now. It was a really good experience. I even went back and got the rest of the containment units so I’d get all the achievements. Though I did have to look up how to get back to the areas I needed to get to.
Will be keeping an eye out for Phobia Game’s next thing they do.
Started this last night and I like the movement and powers so far. I definitely feel like a blob monster who is extremely fast and forceful but just the right amount of imprecise and clumsy. I’m an hour in and the general playthroughs are somewhere in the region of 4 which feels right to me based on how much I’ve progressed and how quickly your blob has to move. I alternate between horror movie roleplay and slamming my flesh into everything, bullets be damned.
i quite like the alien-thing’s movement, but i do think they could do better if there’s a sequel- grabbing stuff with the tentacles is way too fiddly as-is. would also like to see some major improvement in the quality and quantity of the opposition- terrorizing hapless scientists is all well and good for openers, but where are the Kurt Russells and/or Sigourney Weavers?
Yeah that’s a great idea. Some kind of recurring hero character would have added some tension that was lacking and been a good boost to the narrative aspect.
One thing that came to my mind after I finished the game that wouldn’t have really fit thematically but might have been fun to do with the engine as a gimmick is to include a scene where you emerge from a manhole or something and end up on a busy city street with pedestrians and vehicles all over the place. Scaling buildings, etc. Homage to Rampage, I guess.
Yeah I was kinda fine with a lack of map but found it really annoying by the end since the game doesn’t always clearly state where you need to be in which section to progress. Just gotta shove your keys into every lock.
When your blob gets super big I thought the movement kinda felt like Loco Roco.
Ultimately the game’s a decent experiment but it does feel like a game jam idea rather than a fully fleshed out piece. Having a clear antagonist or some crazy escalation towards the end would have been appreciated.
I know ‘reverse horror’ is just a marketing term but the game doesn’t really ever achieve this theme. You’re actually extremely fragile and killing humans just feels like guiding a bacteria to food by the end of it. The best traditional ‘horror’ trope you experience is the frantic scrambling into a vent only to pop out elsewhere.
I liked the ending though. I like to think the monster just went off and had a normal life
