First-person view horror games come out all the time. For Pixelsplit studio, which previously released little-known games of various genres, REVEIL is not only the first attempt to play in this genre, but also the first more or less large release, which even has a publisher – Daedalic Entertainment. The developers made a horror game, but as a psychological thriller the novelty works – first of all thanks to the intriguing plot, which could not be spoiled even by annoying flaws.
A family man with no family
We play as Walter, a man who wakes up in his apartment, takes a couple of headache pills and is about to talk to his wife and daughter. He stumbles upon a puzzle left by a child in the nursery, solves it, and then begins a psychedelic journey through the character’s memories. We learn that he and his family work at the Nelson Brothers Circus – or did, judging by the dilapidated rides, props and horror rooms. The man was mostly busy in the workshop and spent his time at the workbench while the rest of the family performed aerial stunts for the audience. Everywhere he goes (or rather, wherever his memories take him), he doesn’t meet his wife at all, and it’s as if his daughter is playing catch-up with him and won’t let him get close to her.
By this description it should be obvious what happened to Walter’s family, and at first I even felt offended that such a banal plot was written for such a beautiful game. I was immediately reminded of Maquette (even though it’s not a horror), which attracted me with cute screenshots and disappointed me with the story. However, the creators of REVEIL have a couple of aces up their sleeve, thanks to which you start treating the narrative differently quite quickly. Even though you realize what fate befell the wife and daughter, it’s still interesting to find out the details. And in addition to those curious details, there’s another surprise here. Perhaps, avid fans of the genre will not appreciate it and call it clichéd, but I liked it – thanks to it the story is memorable and stands out from other thrillers.
REVEIL is first of all a thriller, not a horror: it’s hard to be scared here. Yes, the atmosphere is a bit creepy, with all kinds of scary clowns, broken mannequins, and toys covered in dirt, but it’s not scary. Even the scrimmers are not scary – fortunately, they were not arranged in a random way. For example, when you ride a wagon down the corridor, ghosts and skeletons drawn on cardboard come out from different sides – in the case of the attraction they look logical. When you just explore the rooms, no one jumps into the screen.
You can’t fault the entourage – there are a lot of different locations both inside and outside the circus. Rooms with rotating walls, corridors with cloth-covered mannequins, moving train with circus props – everything is very beautiful, and the amount of details is huge. Even Walter’s apartment has a lot of junk that is interesting to explore. The environment is so well done that with a quick glance around the room you can learn a lot about the backstory of the circus, Walter and his family.
Everything is spoiled by the main character, who reacts to everything as if he sees something like this every day. Whatever strange situation Walter finds himself in, he may be surprised sometimes, but he immediately forgets about it and continues to comment on everything as if nothing had happened. A wall is missing and you can go outside from the room? Weird, yes, but there’s a daughter hiding behind a tree, so it’s fine. Toy train rides on the floor with no tracks? Funny, I’ll follow it, but I won’t ask too many questions. The protagonist ignores everything that surprises the player or seems strange, which makes it hard to immerse yourself in the story and atmosphere.
This wouldn’t be a problem if the protagonist was silent, but in REVEIL he talks constantly – both when he interacts with objects and when he enters a new room. I have no complaints about his talkativeness, but when a talkative hero is silent in scenes where you’d like to hear him say something, it seems odd. The most annoying thing is that in case of long notes Walter doesn’t read the whole text, but speaks only separate words – it’s very annoying, especially since the subtitles are tiny. It happens only a couple of times during the game.
In general, I liked the story so much that the problems connected with the protagonist couldn’t spoil the impression. The game lasts only three hours, but these three hours turned out to be very intense: the player is gradually brought up to speed, given more and more notes to read, sent to new locations, new plot details are thrown in – there are no complaints about the pace of the narration. What at first seems boring and banal, at some point turns upside down and leads to one of several endings, among which it is difficult to choose the best one.
Circus and more
The gameplay is also pleasant – although REVEIL is more like a walking simulator, they tried to make the gameplay not boring. You’ll encounter a funny mini-game or a tricky puzzle. There are no complex riddles, but a lot of them consists of several stages, and therefore it is interesting to solve them. And ciphers are to solve, and do something on the scattered instructions, and look for items in the room to use them somewhere.
There are also stealth episodes, but they don’t cause any problems at all – the enemies are dumb, so it’s not hard to hide from them. And, even if you get caught, the collected items will remain in your inventory – you won’t be penalized for mistakes by deleting progress. Despite their simplicity, I still wouldn’t call such episodes superfluous – they are both important for the plot and creepy, especially until the first time you’re caught by the enemy.
What I liked the most about the game is the way the hint system works here. There are no pointers, and when you get to a new location, the objects you can interact with are not highlighted. That’s why it’s especially interesting to explore everything yourself, pointing the scope at every suspicious object. And when you have explored everything yourself, pressing the button allows you to call hints – the game will show you in which places you missed something. These can be cabinets, the doors of which can be opened, and some little thing that the character will say something about, and plot items. But you have to look for “collectibles” yourself, even though they are of no use – they are just things that are somehow connected with the main character’s past.
And if you take the “Fan Edition”, which costs a bit more than the usual one, you will be able to include the developers’ comments in the menu. You’ll want to replay the game to get a new look at the story from the beginning, and it’s even more fun with commentary – the developers point out details that are easy to miss. Plus it’s interesting to listen to stories about design decisions and difficulties in creating certain puzzles and gameplay mechanics.
REVEIL will not be included in the lists of the best horror movies, because there is not much horror here, and it cannot be called an outstanding thriller. The strange behavior of the main character puts a negative imprint on the interesting story, which only at first seems very banal and predictable. And the gameplay is fascinating thanks to entertaining puzzles and a large number of different locations, impressive design and detailing. In general, an ideal game for the “Praiseworthy” rating – it won’t leave a trace in history, but it will give you a pleasant evening, which will surely be remembered.
Pros: intriguing plot, gaining momentum with each chapter; excellent design of locations; interesting, multi-stage puzzles and pleasant gameplay in general.
Cons: attempts to scare the player sometimes look pathetic; protagonist is too emotionless and often does not react to the oddities; ridiculously small subtitles.
