Vision, many times, determines our first impression of a thing. For games, too, the first thing we can see is the quality of the picture, so the quality of the game is also a key factor that determines whether players can maintain a good attitude to advance the game process. So is there a game that grabs the player's eyes at the first time because of its excellent picture quality and makes it linger in the game world? The answer is yes.
The Disappearance of Isenkat is a first-person exploration game in which players take on the role of a private investigator, Paul Prospero, who travels to the beautiful and treacherous Red Creek Valley to investigate a mysterious series of supernatural murders. Players will explore freely in a beautiful open environment, looking for evidence, deliberating on the connection of events, and the protagonist Paul has the superpower to interact with the deceased, using special abilities to restore the crime scene, peel back the cocoon to solve various mysteries, and finally the truth is revealed.
Although the game uses the Unreal Engine 3, 9 of the 10 players who have played The Disappearance of Isenkat are exaggerating the picture quality and living up to the name. The game is full of trees, stones, and buildings, the delicate light and shadow effects are impeccable, each screenshot is like a vivid painting, even if it is used as wallpaper, it is difficult to believe that this is a game made by Unreal 3 6 years ago. (There is also a remake of Unreal 4, which takes the graphics up a notch)
An indie game with such a high level of graphics, the original production team The Astronauts is from the core members of "Bullet Storm", has a wealth of Unreal Engine development experience, but only 8 people are really amazing. The rise of the indie game trend not only gives grassroots producers a chance to show their strengths, but also a way for experienced developers to create new worlds.
Supernatural detective, supernatural case
In addition to walking around the beautiful scenery and taking screenshots, the core experience of the game is to investigate various murder cases and paranormal phenomena, whenever the crime scene is encountered, the player needs to explore the surrounding environment, collect various clues, such as blood-stained stones, discarded murder weapons, fatal wounds on the corpse, etc., through evidence search and reasoning to deduce the murderer's methods and processes.
Once sufficient evidence is gathered, it can "interact" with the victim's corpse, recreate the last memories of the deceased's life, restore several key scenes, and correctly sequence these key scenes, even if it is a murder case.
The purest atmospheric orientation, the purest core experience
The biggest appeal of this game is to create an atmospheric experience that allows players to experience the environment, using a first-person perspective to present the game world, a vivid visual experience, and a moving background music, which can be described as a perfect match, making the atmosphere-oriented appeal a great success. The beautiful environment, coupled with the suspense and mild horror atmosphere, seems to make people feel like they are in it.
However, in order to allow the player to pay all attention to the atmosphere and plot of the game, the game is designed to be "lowly challenging". Judging from the above introduction, it will be thought that this is a brain-burning puzzle game, but it is not. Basically, the player is "watching the protagonist reasoning", no need to personally rack his brains, the play process only needs to "explore and search for evidence", to put it bluntly, that is, to give him a click on the places near the crime scene that have the word "investigation", take away all the evidence that can be taken, and then sort the events in the memory reconstruction, sort the bridge section only needs to reason slightly, but in fact, it can also be brainless and trial-and-error, and there is no punishment for errors.
Games like this one that are based on atmosphere or plot and greatly simplify other playing elements are actually not new, text adventure games have been around for many years, but this visual experience of first-person interaction with the environment and real-time calculus has only begun to become popular in recent years, and this new form of game is very good at conveying the "ambient atmosphere" and making the player "experience the environment", attracting many players who love this game experience, which is impossible for other leisure and entertainment. Once the technology of virtual reality is popularized in the future, it is bound to be able to push this experience to a higher level.
And this kind of game has also been questioned by some, some people think that this can not be called "game", at best called visual novels, the classification label of this work on steam also has a slightly ironic "walking simulation", this article does not intend to elaborate on the definition and essence of the game, but it is undeniable that this type of game does bring many players a positive experience and enjoyment, those who can not enjoy it, please resort to other traditional games, do not worry about this type of game will replace the gameplay-based game. Again, as the old saying goes, greens and turnips have their own preferences.
This kind of atmosphere substitution, low gameplay design, and the author has played another game "Fantasy Skull" can be said to be the complete opposite of the existence, "Fantasy Skull" is a no plot, no dialogue, no atmosphere to create, the screen is extremely simple Roguelike FPS, pure gameplay is everything about the game, these two works are extremely praised on Steam, confirming that completely different orientations of the game have their market.
summary
"The Disappearance of Ethan Carter" has an extremely eye-catching graphic performance, excellent atmosphere creation, and just the right background music, blending together to create an immersive feeling. For those who love the atmosphere element, especially the suspense and slightly thriller, it is highly recommended to start playing, but players who cannot accept low challenge or simple gameplay should think twice.
The short length of the game and the imperfection of the save mechanism are also minor shortcomings that are more often criticized, but this game is still a good performance.