Frightening uncertainty. Review of Empty Shell

Two dissimilar genres collided in Empty Shell-Horror and Rogue-Lite. The stylization is made under the shooting of a satellite, and the atmosphere refers to the SCP universe and the work “The task of three bodies”. The latter is a little debatable, someone can catch Lovecraft motives, but one thing can be said for sure-the atmosphere in the Empty Shell is the main distinguishing feature.

Game process

Let’s start with what the player will do. First you have to choose the difficulty. 4 types of complexity are presented to the choice – light, medium, difficult and nightmare. What is the difference between these gradations does not describe the game, but works in classics – the higher the complexity, the thicker the mob and less resources. Separately, I will highlight the NG mode+. Give it after complete passage. This regime is more complicated than a nightmare, only 10 attempts are allocated to it, but the resources are more and the initial equipment of the player is better.

After choosing complexity, a small exposition and a brief textual learning, stylized as a guide for employees, begins The main loop of the gameplay. It looks as follows: You go to the mission – you fulfill goals – go out.

Death means that the race needs to start again. Progression is partly preserved, but not the level itself, but the player. After a successful run, if you drink local currency, you can buy tools that give more opportunities for the player. Referring to the game, which at the moment in Steam called Zombi, on the locations there are corpses from the last race that have part of the last equipment with them. Unfortunately, the corpses are always dead and, unlike Zombi, do not pose a danger.

With the loop of the gameplay and what does death mean for the player figured out. So what Maybe the player himself? If you give a direct answer to this question, then a little – run, roll, shoot, beat, work on a computer. It would seem that the perfect balance and the standard of harmony, but everything is not so simple here. The player’s equipment and those improvements that you can buy for yourself come into business.

Empty Shell has a huge arsenal of weapons: pistols, rifles, shotguns, machine guns, submachine guns and many types of experimental plasma and laser weapons. Moreover Each weapon class varies inside itself -Some guns shoot slowly and slaughterhously, others have a strong scatter, and others have special fire modes that need to be used correctly. Nearby weapons are enough, but he has much less variations than that of a gunshot. When passing, he used only the weapon of the near -battle that they give.

Before the start of analysis of another variety of equipment, you should figure out that, How a player receives his equipment. Equipment or Located at the level, or Bought in special machines For currency. The currency falls from the monsters and lies on locations. It is worth noting that the player’s inventory is limited, but has the opportunity to expand.

8 slots and this was extremely missing on the races. Until I expanded, I constantly had to sacrifice something

The second part of the arsenal is the tools. They can be divided into two categories – spent and permanent. Spent in the form of first -aid kits, armor, drones and other things – are easily located and bought at levels. Permanent tools are presented in the form of special abilities. Slow down time, damage, shield and many others. You can take only one such ability for a mission and they are bought between the races. The purchased ability is preserved between the characters.

You can’t say anything about running and rifts. There is a strip of endurance, it is spent on these actions. It can be increased, like other basic characteristics of the character using the purchase of appropriate improvement in a trading machine.

A separate feature of Empty Shell is to work with computers. From the video game you can bring as an example GTFO or Lethal Company . In real life, work with operating systems based on Linux is closest here. The mechanic is not too complicated, but the sequence of entered commands should be remembered.

You can also find many atmospheric photos in the directories

It’s time to talk about who to use https://voodoocasino.co.uk/ all this against. The game has 24 types of opponents. Among them are categories: ordinary, mini-bosses and bosses. In addition to bosses, opponents are combined with each other. The further you go through the game, the more variations of enemies become. Each type of enemy is dangerous for the player, t. To. the character is extremely candy and because of this gets a lot of damage. About bosses we can say that there are few of them and everyone has their own mechanics.

And then there was no luck to meet the Horde

The meeting with the first boss of the game was a memorable for me. Could not go through the second mission, spent 15 attempts on it. The generator threw me to the level of three mini-bosses with which it was hard to cope with, t. e. At the end of the level remained almost without resources. And suddenly, before going out, I stumble upon an ordinary boss and find out that there are such in the game. At that time, there was the third hour of the game and the passage was on difficult difficulty. I had to reduce the difficulty to normal and start the game again. This is not a highlighting any problem of the game, I just share my experience.

In addition to opponents, locations themselves can be a danger. The truth is only in the form of traps and various garbage, which interferes with movement. On locations, some differences are distinguished by each other. Somewhere there is no light and you have to grab small spaces in front of you with the help of a flashlight, there are a lot of puzzles on another location, and there may be a boss on the third.

Oh and I had to break my head over this mystery

Когда при абсолютной темноте из-за угла выбегали монстры, то это и правда напрягало

Summing up, I will say that there is no something outstanding in the gameplay itself. It fits into the main theme of the project and works only in conjunction with the rest of the project, thereby giving uniqueness to the whole game.

Plot

Understanding the plot occurs by reading notes. Total in their game 108. In addition to notes between missions, brief briefings are given, where the character’s impressions are transmitted under our control. Even if the player replaces a dozen characters, the briefings do not change from this. Reading notes for the most part exhausts. Notes that contain important information, but there is a lot of text about household life of the base. This plays more on the atmosphere in a positive way, because the player describes life in detail before the disaster and the prerequisites for it, but not everyone is suitable for everyone.

Ton. We were chosen as a “volunteer” to save employees and assets of an unnamed company on the island. The island is not noted on the maps. What happened there originally do not say.

Moving deeper into the gut of islands, the character increasingly encounters incomprehensible phenomena and terrible creatures. In this moment lies the reference to the universe SCP. Most of the information is hidden from the character. In a collision with monsters, he himself does not understand what to do with them and where do they come from. And there is something more behind this, because the corporation sets the main goal not to destroy this complex, but to save it, collecting as much information as possible about the events that occur.

At the end of its path, the complex is becoming more terrible. Eyes appear on the walls, the rooms can be in some parts of the flesh. The character learns that the signal into space was sent from this complex and the most terrible – the answer was received, which brought another life to our planet. This is not some kind of thoughtless creature, but rather a mind that, with his capabilities, tried to understand where he was getting. Because of this, most of the staff died and monsters appeared. Humanity has met a different form of life, but it turned out to be very different from our ideas.

Summing up, I note that the plot itself is simple, but this is not a problem. It is not difficult to compose the overall picture, there is a small scope for the player of thinking about what are taking place.

Atmosphere

Of all the game elements, the atmosphere in Empty Shell is felt most clearly for the player. This is not an ephemeral concept, but a set of means and techniques laid down by the developer. Let’s analyze in detail what the atmosphere in this game consists.

Camera and visual style. Due to the fact that the player is watching the satellite and the image of black and white, a feeling of detachment is created. The player himself is put in the position of an observer behind a certain show, but at the same time he himself controls the participants in this show.

Audio-part. All sounds are muffled, come from a distant speaker. Due to this, the detachment effect is only intensifying.

Text. Collection of pieces of information about people who once lived in this place. The moment when the player is more and more revealed the moment of turning household life into hell.

Game process. Limited angle of viewing of the camera, quick deaths, dangerous enemies and a small amount of information.

Thanks to the interaction of these elements among themselves, the game from the usual Rogue-Lite acquires the features of the Horror genre, which makes the atmosphere the main distinguishing feature of this project.

The remaining disadvantages

Once the passage was a critical bug. I cleaned the entire location, and then accidentally climbed over the edge of the map from which it was impossible to get out;

It’s hard to get used to the visual part. Many different effects that strain eyes. They can be disabled, but you still get used to the picture for some time.

Image with all filters

Image without all visual effects

The remaining pluses

Leaders table for those who want to compete.

Empty Shell can take several evenings. The game is short, my full passage took about 4 and a half hours. Combining the elements of the horror and Rogue-Lite, the project can provide unique experience for lovers of each of these genres. The project has a free demo and the author is already developing the next Empty Shell: The Loop project, whose free demo version is already available.